BREMERTON—Not long ago, Bremerton High School was a dangerous place. Gang activity, drugs, bullying and lewd behavior were more common than kickball.
Academically, the school was a failure. In 2003, only 57 percent of seniors graduated on time—an F by any standard.
But something extraordinary happened at Bremerton High School.
Between 2003 and 2010 the graduation rate rose from 57 to 83 percent, where it’s more or less stayed. During that same period, the statewide average rose from 66 to 76 percent. Bremerton improved at more than twice the state’s rate.
People have been made saints over less impressive feats.
Fixing a broken culture
The academic culture at Bremerton was low and they had the results to match: WASL scores in reading, math and science were all below state averages.
Aaron Leavell, now the district superintendent, took over as Bremerton’s principal in 2005, the school’s fifth in seven years. He remembers being afraid for his safety at the school and knowing that, statistically, for every 10 students he passed in the hallways six would graduate on time
The combination of poor grades and behavior created a breaking point within the district. Something had to be done, but how? And where to start?
The culture was bad and so were grades but does one beget the other?
According to the district, yes.
Leavell compares the choice to dieting.
“You can go on a diet and look good for a little while or you can make a lifestyle change and it’ll last forever,” Leavell said.
To change the culture meant the school—and the district—had to change the way it approached its students. They had to become more supportive. They had to form a Bremerton family.
“It’s my personal observation that students who drop out often do so because they don’t see themselves as a contributing member of their society,” said Patty Krisher, an English teacher at Bremerton. “If the programs and classes we offer could show them that they have something to offer and that they are valued, we have a better chance of getting them to graduation—and beyond.”
One size doesn’t fit all
The student population was (and is) socioeconomically diverse, so this family would be multicultural, to say the least.
Some students had learning disabilities, others came from low income families in which the parents never attended college, while others got along just fine. No matter, they were all taught under the same roof.
This begged yet another question.
“How do you find a program that works for everyone?” Leavell asked. “Well, you don’t. You find lots of programs that work for individuals and pockets of kids.”
Instead of looking for one program to fit every student’s needs, the district added many programs. This premise was perhaps the most important in the district’s renaissance.
Along with traditional elementary, middle and high schools, the district has an early learning center, a STEM academy, two alternative high schools and a Spanish immersion program.
“I think that’s why we’re so proud in Bremerton,” Leavell said. “Why we’ve always been cutting edge, we’ve always been innovative thinkers (is) because we want to offer our kids and parents choices and we want to offer our kids and parents a world class education experience.”
The downside of this multi-faceted approach is that it’s more taxing—financially and in practice—than other systems.
“You have to have a staff who are not only willing but committed to making those programs happen and making the programs where kids don’t choice into making the basic education happen,” Leavell said.
Supporting underprivileged students
The district incorporated several programs at every level to aid the transition from one school to the next, including college.
“We as a staff and district realized that if we were going to sell the idea of going to college to our students, we would have to increase the rigor of our classes, so that not only could they get into college, but actually succeed in getting a 4-year degree,” said Krisher.
One program that is almost universally cited as crucial to turning around the graduation rate is AVID (Achievement Via Individual Determination).
The school began using AVID in 2004. It helps middle and high school students with academic potential and whose families aren’t college educated. The hope is to teach them how to be better students and how to transition into college.
“[It] seemed to really excel in high poverty, high minority school districts across the nation and still had a 95 percent high school to college transition rate,” Leavell said.
There are 24 seniors in AVID graduating this year and all will attend college, according to the school. Many said the inclusive nature of the program, along with its teaching strategies, is the secret to its effectiveness.
“I probably wouldn’t even be thinking about college if it wasn’t for AVID,” said Shyanne McGhee, a senior AVID student who’s attending Eastern Washington University in the fall.
Many parents of AVID students didn’t attend college, so they often have no one to look to for advice for how to apply to universities.
“For me, it was like a family that I can get help with school because a lot of the times our parents aren’t aware of how much the things have changed in schooling,” said Alana Winborn, a senior who’s heading to Western Washington University in the fall.
If AVID is a family, its mother is undoubtedly Lisa Gordon-Ramstad, AVID teacher.
“She will check on your grades, she will ask you questions, she will ask you what you did last night,” said Sherry Obando, who will attend Olympic College. “You really get that family feeling with everyone. Everyone’s really supportive of each other and it’s really nice to be surrounded by people who are focused, who have the same goals as you do to go to college.”
Gordon-Ramstad said skills learned in AVID tend to crossover into other classes and ideally, non-AVID students will follow suit.
The hope is their friends will see their habits and then follow their lead, said Gordon-Ramstad.
Combined, the AVID seniors are approaching $1 million dollars in scholarship money.
Restructuring schools and classes
One of the first major changes came at the middle school level. For years, 6-7 grade students went to middle school and 8-9 grade students went to junior high.
The district scrapped that format for traditional a 6-8 grade middle school and 9-12 high school.
Sixth grade was taught in a classroom away from seventh and eighth grades and ninth grade was largely insulated from the other classes. School officials say this helped ease the transition from one school to the next.
Another step was restructuring the school day.
For years, the high school was tailor made to work against decreasing attention spans. Students were on an A/B schedule: One day they’d have three 2-hour classes and then a different three classes the next.
To compound matters, students were given a 10 to 15-minute breaks between classes, a dangerous amount of time for teenagers, Leavell said.
Bremerton was quickly converted to a more traditional schedule: six 55-minute classes each day with 5-minute breaks in between.
And instead of pushing against short attention spans, the staff embraced them.
“We don’t have lecture classes here where students simply sit and listen,” said Cindy McClain, English department chair. “We have learned a lot about how the brain works so we teach in small chunks and have the students interact with each other and the information frequently throughout the periods.”
What’s next?
While the high school and the district have improved considerably in the last decade, Leavell says there are still areas in need of improvement.
“I think we’re constantly just looking at ways to analyze and close the achievement gaps that exist in our schools,” Leavell said.
He pointed to the multitude of schools and programs as a major step in the right direction.
“Those are all very strategic decisions that have been made over the last 10 years to continue to address the achievement gap in this district and to find ways to challenge those kids that don’t experience the gap effect,” Leavell said.
Reflecting
Looking back at the road traveled by the district in the last 10 years, Leavell can’t help but be proud.
“I think the graduation rate in the Bremerton School District is really a success story,” Leavell said. “It’s not something that those of us in our current seats can take all the credit for. It’s something that started a decade ago with people who recognized a problem and were courageous enough to be completely transparent and open about it and decided ‘we can’t sit back and have this be OK.’”
The Bremerton community has been active at school board meetings and are routinely praised for their lack of pretension and politicization.
“They’ve supported us tremendously,” Leavell said. “They’ve passed our levies, they’ve passed our bonds. I can’t say enough and give enough credit to those people because we can’t do it alone.”
