Blazing New Trails - Connexions

Increasing Student Success in Rigorous Courses 171
program was strengthened through ongoing professional development opportunities. As an
administrator commented, “It is important to train the staff . . . New teachers coming into the
program have to participate in professional development. We work to assist teachers.”
High expectations. High expectations for students have been fostered through a focus
on college for all students. A teacher stressed the GEAR UP project’s success in educating
students to the steps in preparing for college. As he elaborated:
I came from, not only a different district, but a different state, and I have never seen a
group of students more educated on what’s available to them. We’re giving them
exposure to college now. I am just so impressed with the knowledge that our students
have acquired through this grant. I didn’t just come from a different district. I came
from a different state, and I thought we had it together there. However, the exposure
that these students have had to college preparation has been phenomenal, especially
the lower income students, who under normal circumstances would have never visited
universities and would have never participated in the A++ or been pushed to take the
SAT or ACT. The amount of knowledge that our students have of what is possible is
great. I am very impressed with this program.
Council members stressed that high expectations were evidenced by greater participation of
students in their dual credit courses. A teacher commented:
Our GEAR UP students are really involved in the dual credit courses that we offer. I
think one reason is because the emphasis on college preparation has been ongoing.
They’ve heard, ‘college, college, college,’ and they are seeking this experience.
Another teacher emphasized, “When we talk about college, we talk to all the students, not just
a particular group.” The GEAR UP council members were particularly proud of academic
opportunities through tutoring and preparation for college admission because of the high
expectations. As a teacher explained, “I think one thing that we’ve been doing is we’ve been
offering the opportunity to take online courses with the university. That’s been working well
with some students.” Another teacher added that they have made the students more aware of
the community college admission test, THEA, and are seeing more students taking the dual
credit classes. As the teacher commented, “I’ll be really excited when their results come in
this year, and I can see how many good things have come from this.”
Another teacher explained:
We set higher expectations, and we don’t just push for passing on TAKS. We are
pushing students to achieve the recommended level. We talk about expectations and
say that passing is no longer good enough. We must go for the recommended level.
We have raised the expectations. We’ve also had a real strong push this year as far as
SAT and ACT vocabulary and testing strategies in the classroom. Every student in this
school district can tell you about the SAT and ACT and are getting prepared for these
tests.
Council members were particularly impressed with the number of GEAR UP students taking
the concurrent classes. As a teacher explained, “They’re being encouraged to sign up for
summer classes, and several of them who haven’t taken summer classes before have told me,