Draft Action Research Plan

Goal: The goal of this action research is to help at-risk students, who are behind in their graduation credits, achieve academic succes, recover credits and return to being at grade level. By doing so, an improvement in the school's climate and accountability rating is expected. This goal will be accomplished by employing mentoring strategies that will answer the question: What effects does a low ratio teacher to student mentoring program have on at-risk students, and how does it affect the school's climate and accountability rating?

Action Steps: 1. Identify the students that are not at grade level to a lack of
credits.
2. Assign each teach on campus one or two students, matching
as much as possible a teacher's co-teaching time to the subject
period in which the student has traditionally had difficulty passing.
3. Address the faculty and explain the background need for
and how the mentoring program will work.
4. Call all idenitified students to an assembly to explain the program
and give each student the name of their mentor teacher.
5. Teachers meet with their mentor student (s) during their
co-teaching time once a week.
6. Research and develop strategies for use in the program.
7. Develop a student climate survey.
8. Have all students on campus complete the climate survey.
9. Analyze the climate survey and report the results to the Principal.
10. Analyze the 1st semester grades of mentoring students, looking
at patterns and trends of improvement
11. Mentor teachers adjust straetgies as needed.
12. Students complete an end of the year climate survey.
13. Analyze TAKS results, 2nd semester grades, credits earned and
end of the year climate surveys.
14. Prepare a final report on the effects of the student
mentoring program.
15. With principal input, present report of action research study
to the teaching staff prior to the start of the 2011-2012 school year.

Person Responsible: I will be primarily responsible for the action research. The head counselor will help me obtain the data on which students are not at grade level.

Timeline: This project will start on Monday, August 2, 2011 with the gathering of data on student credits. It will be implemented during the 1st six weeks of school with teachers meeting their mentor students. The research will progess throughout the school year and will cumlinate on Friday, May 17, 1011. The final report will be truned in to the Principal by the end of June of 2011.

Needed Resources: Student transcripts, grades per six weeks, grades per semester, start of school climate surveys, end of school climate surveys, TAKS Results and 2010-2011 AEIS Report.

Evaluation: The evaluation of most of the action research steps are simply a check of whether or not the task was accomplished. The evaluation of the research and the effects of the project on student grades, credits, the school climate and the school's accountability rating will depend on the date which will include gardes, credits earned, TAKS results and the school's AEIS report.