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Story posted November 20, 2008

Results:
• Failing grades have decreased 33%
• Unsatisfactory passing grades have decreased 21%
• Mean GPA has risen from 2.81 to 3.00

All students benefit from having a "home field advantage" (Howard, 1999) that can provide support and help motivate them to achieve their best. At Dominion High School in northern Virginia, this advantage is created by matching each student with an adult mentor who provides support and encouragement throughout the student's high school experience.

Dominion opened its doors in fall 2003 in the highly diverse, fast-growing region of Loudoun County, VA, with a student body of nearly 700 students in grades 9-11. A dedicated faculty and a supportive community welcomed students to the school and began working toward a collaborative vision that promoted the success of every student. But by the school's second academic year, after nearly 350 new students and more than 25 additional faculty members joined the school, staff and community members noticed a decrease in overall achievement and an increase in the number of students experiencing academic difficulty.

While assessing the reasons for this decline, the school's instructional council--composed of faculty, school community, and student body representatives--observed that many students were successful on standard measures of achievement but were consistently underachieving in the classroom. This realization led the instructional council to explore strategies to motivate students to achieve their potential. After conducting a review of relevant research and hearing about the personal experiences of several staff members, the council developed a comprehensive plan to enhance motivation, promote engagement, and increase personalization. A key element of this plan was the design and implementation of a new advisory period.

Creating a Roster
School staff divided the student body into 100 heterogeneous groups of 12. Each group has a mean GPA as close as possible to the school's overall mean GPA. All groups include three students from each grade level, have six females and six males, and are racially and ethnically diverse.

Each group is led by a licensed staff member-a teacher, instructional specialist, librarian, assistant principal, or counselor--who advocates for his or her cohort of students throughout their four-year high school experience. Each advisory group is identified as a "clubhouse" with 12 student "players" and a mentor who is the "manager." The bell schedule includes a 20-minute clubhouse period twice a week so that players can meet with their managers.

The Playbook
Three subcommittees of the instructional council developed a clubhouse curriculum with three strands: personal goal-setting, silent sustained reading (SSR), and character development. The past professional experience of staff members as well as the school's overall education philosophy suggested that a high degree of structure would be important to this initiative's success. Therefore, the clubhouse curriculum contains lesson plans for every day that clubhouse meets.

Good goals. Students' previous year's report cards are placed in a binder as a starting point for the goal-setting process. Each student develops personal goals with his or her mentor, who maintains a binder containing previous goal sheets and report cards for the clubhouse. Students set numerical goals for each of their courses, as well as targeted goals for attendance, service to community, and engagement in the co-curricular program.

Just read. The first year of the clubhouse, the SSR subcommittee selected The Acorn People by Ron Jones for SSR and distributed a copy to every student and staff member in the school to be read during 20 minutes of SSR every Wednesday.
Develop character. The character subcommittee identified globally accepted values--such as trust, integrity, understanding, empathy, and respect--as topics for facilitated dialogue within clubhouses. Each character lesson plan includes scenarios that are designed to prompt students to discuss responsible decision making in each context.

As the clubhouse plan and curriculum became final, the task of preparing the staff, student body, and community began. A group of involved staff members began building support among the staff for the clubhouse structure. Faculty meetings highlighted the structure and the curriculum components, and a significant portion of the school's professional development retreat was devoted to the implementation of each pillar of the clubhouse curriculum. To gain the support of another key constituency, the principal presented the clubhouse strategy to an enthusiastic parent community.

Change It Up
Some aspects of this initial strategy have required adaptation and adjustment. Without question, the greatest challenge during the inaugural year of implementation was engaging students in meaningful dialogue about issues of character. Through honest reflection, the staff recognized that they had not taken the time to build the trusting peer relationships that were necessary to engage students in intense dialogue about serious issues of character. Consequently, during the second year of implementation, the third area of curricular focus was changed from character to community building. Through the consistent use of team-building activities since that time, a genuine sense of community has been established within almost every clubhouse.

Initial efforts to stimulate student interest in SSR also met with mixed results, prompting significant changes in this curricular strand as well. Most notably, the SSR subcommittee quickly realized that a single book will not capture the enthusiastic attention of the entire staff and the diverse student body. Consequently, the school successfully implemented a much more effective approach to promoting SSR during the 2007-08 school year. Under the leadership of the school's literacy coach, Dominion purchased hundreds of high-interest, adolescent titles and strategically distributed them to clubhouses with a specific instructional strategy that mentors could use to introduce titles to students. This new approach significantly increased the level of student interest in SSR and will be continued for the foreseeable future.

Final Score
As a direct result of the thorough, highly structured planning process and the dedicated efforts of a highly caring and competent staff, the clubhouse program's impact on student achievement in Dominion was immediate and dramatic.

During the first year of implementation alone, failing grades decreased 14%. The results were even more impressive for Hispanic students whose failure rate decreased by 29% during the first year of implementation. School-wide, over the past three years of clubhouse implementation, failing grades have decreased 33% and unsatisfactory passing grades have decreased 21%. Mean GPA has risen from 2.81 to 3.00.

Dominion's committed, motivated staff members assumed new responsibilities to bring the clubhouse program to fruition, and the community consistently provided needed moral and financial support to facilitate its success. The structure and detail accompanying the planning process also contribute to its success. But perhaps the most important factor ensuring the success of the clubhouse initiative has been the willingness of all members of the school community to work through the challenges that are associated with such an extensive undertaking, recognizing those areas where improvement could be realized, and working diligently and patiently to develop best practices. Truly, every student at our school benefits from a home field advantage.

REFERENCES • Howard, G. R. (1999) We can't teach what we don't know: White teachers, multiracial schools. New York Teachers College Press.

For additional information, please contact:
John Brewer
Principal, Dominion High School
john.brewer@loudoun.k12.va.us

Michelle L. Ouirin
Assistant Principal, Dominion High School
michelle.quirin@loudoun.k12.va.us

This story came to LFA's attention after being published in the print edition of NASSP's November 2008 High School Edition of Principal Leadership magazine.

Story adapted with permission of NASSP from John Brewer, Michelle L. Quirin, and Karrie Rinder Bryan's article Home Field Advantage in Principal Leadership, High School Edition November 2008 Edition

Copyright 2008 National Association for Secondary School Principals. For more information on NASSP products and services to promote excellence in middle level and high school leadership, visit http://www.principals.org/