To print this page, select "Print" from the File menu of your browser

Back to Graphic Version

Navigation 101

A comprehensive guidance model gets parents on board for their students’ school journey

Story by RHONDA BARTON
Photos by KARIE HAMILTON

TACOMA, Washington—At Washington High, and throughout the Franklin Pierce School District, parent-teacher conferences are a rite of spring. But these half-hour sessions don’t look anything like the harried, perfunctory meetings that are typical in high schools around the country. As the originator of the statewide Navigation 101 guidance program, the district has pioneered a way to help students use the conferences to present clear and careful plans for their future, tie their coursework to their life goals, and boost parent involvement in the process.

A student-driven system

Consider what’s unfolding in Room 201: Perky freshman Samantha Wallace confidently pulls out her portfolio and guides her parents and advisor through her grades and attendance record. With authority and ease she discusses her scores on the DRP (Degrees of Reading Power) and WASL (Washington Assessment of Student Learning) tests. She draws laughter from her mom and dad when she tells them that a recent job survey showed she was well suited for a career as a principal, bank manager, or criminal defense lawyer.

Midway through the conference, Scott Wallace asks his daughter, “How do you think things are going for you in high school so far?” Samantha pauses for a moment. “I feel like I could do better in PE, but I have no desire to move around,” she replies. “Trig is a matter of studying really hard, but I’m pretty happy with my grade [an 85 percent] because it’s one of the better grades in the class.”

Samantha asks advisor Judy Durkin if she needs to take more math classes after freshman year, and Durkin points out that colleges will be looking for four years of mathematics.

The conference ends with Samantha, her parents, and Durkin signing off on next year’s course schedule. Then, it’s on to the school’s computer lab to preregister for the fall semester.

Ellen Wallace is impressed with Samantha’s first high school student-led conference, one of the hallmarks of Navigation 101. “I went through this school so it’s easy to compare my experience and hers,” she says. “When I was here, there were no two-year or four-year goals. Standards weren’t as rigorous. Now, kids see what it takes to get into college and it gives them some goals to shoot for, and the system keeps us apprised of how she’s doing.”

Scott Wallace agrees, “I think the process is working. It helps us hold our daughter more accountable for the goals she set.”

Charting the way statewide

The Wallaces aren’t the only ones who rate Navigation 101 highly. Surveys show parent attendance at conferences has increased significantly at Washington High—from 35 percent to 80 percent—since the program started here six years ago. The number of students and parents who say the conference is “worthwhile” has also jumped. Tim Stensager, one of Navigation 101’s developers and head of the district’s career education program, attributes that to a new context for parent participation. “In the past, most parents were brought in because of their student’s bad grades or bad attitude. We’ve turned from a failure focus to a success-oriented one,” he comments. “We’re focusing on how the school and the parent can be partners in helping kids succeed.”

Navigation 101 schools across Washington also report dramatic increases in parent participation in conferences—reaching up to 98 percent in some high schools. Five “lighthouse districts” adopted the program three years ago. They now serve as mentors to some of the 80 schools and districts that signed on to Navigation 101 this year with the help of state implementation grants. Some districts are initiating the program in middle school; some are starting with high school; and Franklin Pierce is adding an elementary school version to its middle and high school offerings.

At the heart of the program is a curriculum that teaches students how to navigate through the educational system and prepare for their postgraduate lives. Delivering this curriculum is beyond the capacity of most schools’ counseling staff, so all certified staff members—including the superintendent in one district—are trained to teach 63 prepared lessons that span grades 6–12. The Navigation 101 classes meet twice a month throughout the school year, and each teacher leads a class of about 20 students who stay together during their middle school or high school careers. Students maintain portfolios, which they present at their annual parent-teacher conferences. In senior year, students share their portfolios with a panel of community members.

Judy Durkin, Samantha’s advisor, is starting her second cohort of Navigation 101 students. A graphic arts teacher, she likes the system but admits to sometimes feeling “uncomfortable” about stepping into what’s traditionally a counselor’s territory. Despite the checks and balances built into the system, she wonders, “Am I going to be on the line if a kid gets to be a senior and thinks the plan I’ve helped him with is screwed up? If we make a mistake, the student will pay for it.”

At the same time, though, Durkin sees the positives: not only in “helping kids realize that real life happens at the end of their 12 years of [school] protection” but in getting family members involved. “Our expectation is that parents will find out more about what goes on when their student leaves the house in the morning,” she says.

Relationship building

Tina Ellis’s Navigation students are juniors this year. The English and journalism teacher thinks that having the same group of advisees is “truly advantageous ... they’ve been having conversations with me twice a month for several years now.” And, she describes the student-led conferences as “awesome.”

“It’s always interesting to see the dynamic between the kid and the parent,” she observes. “It gives you a greater understanding of the students—where they get their sense of humor or why they’re quiet or talkative.”

Talkative is the perfect descriptor for 17-year-old George Culver, a high-energy kid with a brilliant smile. George and his mother arrive for their conference 16 minutes late. Ellis lets George know that his tardiness isn’t appreciated and that he should have dressed up for the meeting. His mother, Stephanie Farren, shakes her head and says, “George knew you’d get on him about this.”

Despite the rocky start, George uses his finely honed public speaking skills to give an entertaining and thorough presentation. The student body vice president and basketball captain has set his sights on becoming a dentist. He acknowledges that the C’s on his report card may hurt his chances, but “I know I can do better in the future if I apply myself,” he says.

George tells his mom that everyone in his Navigation 101 class filled out the Common Application and visited the nearby campus of Pacific Lutheran University. “I’m really interested in going there,” he says, “but I’m also looking into Howard because of my African American heritage.” With a schedule that includes physics and calculus next year, he thinks that he’ll be well positioned for a four-year university. “I realize that colleges really look at classes. If it wasn’t for the Navigation portfolio though, I wouldn’t be thinking about that until I was a senior,” he reflects.

When George finishes, his mother says she appreciated the conference: “It allows me to see how George is growing, where he’s been, and how he’s gotten this far.”

Aiming for equity

Encouraging students like George to tackle more challenging courses was one of the main reasons Franklin Pierce School District developed Navigation 101 in the first place. That was especially important at Washington High—where almost half the students qualify for free and reduced-price lunch and there’s a 45 percent minority enrollment.

“We looked at national statistics that showed the distribution of college degrees by economic quartile: 75 percent of the families from the upper quartile receive bachelor’s degrees, while only 9–12 percent of people in the bottom quartile do,” says Dan Barrett, a technical assistance provider to other Navigation 101 districts. “There are other indicators of poverty and postsecondary success that compelled us to say we’re not doing enough for our students.”

Washington High Principal Jim Ridgeway recalls those early discussions during Navigation 101’s conception. “We asked, ‘What do you think about 60–65 percent of our kids leaving high school without taking math? What do you think about only 10 percent of seniors taking rigorous courses?’ We either stand up and do something about it or sit back and let it happen.” The district took on the challenge, using $20,000 in school-to-work grants as seed money and scraping together other funds by shifting budget priorities.

Today, about 60 percent of the juniors and seniors in Franklin Pierce’s two high schools enroll in chemistry, physics, and precalculus. Nearly half of low-income upperclassmen (as measured by free and reduced-price lunch rates) take “gatekeeper” courses—nearly double the number just two years earlier. In addition, the district has seen a steady decline in the number of graduates who need to take remedial courses at the college level and an increase in 10th-grade WASL scores.

Pushing students to sign up for classes like Advanced Placement English or chemistry has forced the district to adopt a more consumer-driven approach to scheduling. “It’s not arena scheduling where a teacher hands out 30 tickets and that’s it,” says Tom Edwards, Washington High’s dean of students. Once students preregister for classes, the computer generates a master schedule. “If 45 kids say they want to do Beginning Broadcasting, the computer automatically tells us we need two sections of the class,” he notes.

Getting teachers to buy into this system—and to the other demands of Navigation 101—takes “an enormous amount of school leadership,” according to Principal Ridgeway. He says starting up the program was sometimes “like driving through Baghdad outside the Green Zone; a lot of contractual things and barriers come up that you deal with.” But, as Edwards points out, it didn’t hurt that three of the four grade-band leaders who helped implement Navigation 101 at Washington were active union members and were quick to see the program’s value.

With a track record of a half-dozen years in the Franklin Pierce School District and growing acceptance around the state, Navigation 101 has proved to be a winner for both students and their parents.

“We’ve seen some unintended benefits about providing parents with all this information about educational opportunities,” says Barrett. “As they see how their students are navigating the system, they’re thinking that maybe they need to create a plan, too, and that there are places where they can get help with postsecondary options.”

Right now, the state hasn’t developed formal strategies to help parents pursue their own educational goals, but Barrett thinks that could be on the near horizon.

In the meantime, Navigation 101 is helping students like Samantha Wallace and George Carver set a smoother course toward the future while also engaging their parents in the voyage.