Shelton High goal: More attendance

Increasing student attendance, decreasing the number of off-campus suspensions and helping ninth-graders have a successful first year of high school are among the goals this school year at Shelton High School.

Principal Bruce Kipper presented the school's plan Sept. 26 at the Shelton School Board meeting.

One goal is to increase student attendance by 10% from last school year.

"As you know, that's a tricky subject," he said. "There's a lot of things that are out of our control ... There's issues of transportation, the new guidelines in the past, if a kid was kind of sick, you told him to come to school. We don't do that anymore. We want to keep everyone safe, especially if it's COVID ... so we didn't show as much in this area. Overall, we had about a 2% increase from the year before."

Another goal this school year is decreasing the number of off-campus suspensions by at least 10%, which would be a reduction from 197 last school year to 177 this school year. School administrators also are focused on reducing the number of disruptions and defiant behavior regarding cellphones.

"Teenagers love their phones," Kipper said. "We're not trying to exclude the use of phones, we're trying to teach students how to use phones appropriately at school. A cellphone, a smartphone is a great tool for learning. It can be used in a number of ways to help students learn. That's what our focus is, opposed to trying to get students not to use them at all. That's not realistic."

In each classroom, teachers have red and green signs. When the green sign is displayed, students can use their phones at that time.

The strategies for lowering the number of student suspensions include using "restorative" discipline practices, educating parents on their child's cellphone use in school and rewarding students for positive behavior.

"We're looking at more restorative practices," Kipper said. "How do we resolve the problem and keep kids in school ... We're looking at what we want students to do, instead of focusing on what we don't want them to do."

Success for first-year students is another priority this school year. A goal is to increase the percentage of first-year students earning six or more credits by 10%.

"The research is clear that if a student gets off to a good start their freshman year - in fact you can narrow it down to the first six to nine weeks of school - if their first six to nine weeks are positive, they're engaged, they're learning, it makes their four years go much smoother," Kipper said.

First-year orientation is not just a few days, but a focus for those students all school year, Kipper said. First-year student seminars are two trimesters, and the topics include community building, goal setting, study skills, time management and academy exploration.