Family & Community Alternative Learning
Charter Schools Best Practices

Lowell Middlesex Academy Charter School

Assessments that Matter for At-Risk Students

Topics:	At-risk Learners
Mission:
Goals:	1. To allow the participating schools an opportunity to gain a clear sense of how their students perceived their educational, social and career development possibilities at their respective schools.
Summary:	Counting What Counts: Assessments that Matter for At-Risk Students. Lowell Middlesex Academy Charter School serves an at-risk student population. The school has worked with researchers to design surveys to assess what matters most to their students, and uses the feedback to make programmatic adjustments. These include changes to curriculum and instruction, making decisions around school staffing and staff/professional development, and working with external partners. Over the past two school years-2005-2006 and 2006-2007-Project IF (Inventing the Future), a research group from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, has partnered with the Project for School Innovation (PSI) to support a cluster of four charter schools that focus on particularly high-risk students. These schools, often called "second-chance charter schools," target students who either have failed in more mainstream educational settings, have experienced significant personal difficulties that made education inordinately challenging, or have simply opted for an alternative educational experience for any number of reasons. The primary focus of the research was on the development of a survey tool that would allow the four schools to gain a clear sense of how their students perceived their educational, social and career development possibilities at their respective schools. The survey was a composite of open-ended questions asked in a structured format that allowed students to rank order the priority of their responses and multiple choice or "likert-type" questions which allowed students to circle the answer that best captured their response. Each school's leadership team was responsible for the initiating the project and for all decision-making. Administrators from the four schools, including Lowell Middlesex Academy, wrote and published a book documenting successful strategies for working with students who have or are at-risk for dropping out of school. The book, Building Supportive High Schools, provides step-by-step guidance for other educators who are working to address the national dropout crisis. In addition, the school leaders offer ongoing workshops to interested educators through the Project for School Innovation.
Partner(s):
Dates:	01/01/2005 01/01/2006
Contact:	Marge McDevitt, Principal (mcdevittm@middlesex.mass.edu/978.656.3400) Ruth Feldman, Project for School Innovation (rfeldman@psinnovation.org/617-825-0703 ext. 3290)
Resources:	Building Supportive High Schools (available through Project for School Innovation, www.psinnovation.org/what_we_do/dissemination/books/building_supportive_high_schools) Tools and Resources (available free of charge through the Project for School Innovation, www.psinnovation.org/tools_and_resources/open) Film (DVD/Video) Workshop Session Materials
Federal Charter Schools Program Funds?	Yes

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