2019-2020 Cahn Cohort NARRATIVE REPORT

Fia Davis • Cahn Fellow 2019

Our Cahn project focused on building a student friendly rubric for our middle school students, teachers, and parents. We recognized that our focus needed to be at the middle school level. The highest point of leverage for our research and our point of impact is the “Middle School Road to Proficiency” rubric. Pathways has had breakthroughs in our graduation rate, teacher capacity, strong systems and structures. However, we did not see that same progress at the middle school level and in middle school state assessments. While our current graduation rate is 94%, our middle school proficiency rate pales in comparison at 42% ELA and 29% Math. We are very clear as to why we retain over 75% of our students from middle school to high school. Students and families stay with us because they come to us understanding what happens on the seven year journey at our school. However, at the middle school level, we are not satisfied with our proficiency rates and our current performance numbers are not a reflection of the capacity of our school.