We’ve been at the 2010–2011 school year for over a month now and we’ve col­lected some data for com­par­i­son.  The core changes this year include the imple­men­ta­tion of a 1 to 1 lap­top pro­gram, a 5 X 3 trimester that fea­tures extended 65 minute classes,  the house sys­tem, and a later start time begin­ning at 8:30 am.  

We’ve pulled some data at this point look­ing at tardies, absences, and dis­ci­pline infrac­tions.  Below are the results and some pos­si­ble expla­na­tions as we con­tinue to eval­u­ate the changes tak­ing place at Peo­ria Notre Dame High School

Dis­ci­pline

While we have been blessed to never con­sider dis­ci­pline issues a large prob­lem, the results in this cat­e­gory are very inter­est­ing.  Over­all dis­ci­pline refer­rals are down 63.4% from last year.   Part of the ben­e­fits of adding a 1 to 1 com­puter pro­gram is the shift from pas­sive to active learn­ing strate­gies.  As teach­ers become pro­fi­cient at inte­grat­ing tech­nol­ogy into their instruc­tion we see the qual­ity of stu­dent engage­ment increas­ing.  Infor­ma­tion is no longer scarce. Teach­ers are not lim­ited to text books but have a large array of instruc­tional choices many of which involve a more active role for the stu­dent learner.    All of this log­i­cally leads to a decrease in dis­ci­pline refer­rals.  Active stu­dents engaged in learn­ing stay out of trou­ble.  School is no longer a media and infor­ma­tion poor envi­ron­ment com­pared to the home envi­ron­ment.   The dig­i­tal divide between what stu­dents have access to in school and out of school no longer exists.   

Two years of prepa­ra­tion went into the adap­ta­tion of 1 to 1 com­put­ing.  One of the lessons learned is to take risks with tech­nol­ogy.  Teach­ers do not nec­es­sar­ily have to be pro­fi­cient at every detail of the soft­ware pro­grams but their will­ing­ness to chal­lenge stu­dents to use these tools in pow­er­ful ways often go well rewarded.   As part of home­com­ing week stu­dents were asked to cre­ate dig­i­tal shorts tied to the home­com­ing theme of “Irish­opoly”.  Below are two links to videos that in my hum­ble opin­ion are very good for a group of stu­dents who have had their mac­books for lit­tle over two months.  I’d share all six but I think two will suffice.  

Mar­ian House Skit

Bene­dict House Skit

Tardies

The daily start of school has been pushed back by forty min­utes this school year in line with cur­rent research regard­ing teenagers and opti­mal brain func­tion.   Some of the fears in our plan­ning focused on the con­cern that this would really do noth­ing to decrease tardies or increase per­for­mance.  As a num­ber of naysay­ers argued, ” Teenagers would still be late and given their nature a later start time wouldn’t do any­thing.”   We’ll it is still early but the num­bers are in.   Tardies have fallen 31%.    Addi­tion­ally we have seen large num­bers of stu­dents arriv­ing early to either social­ize or work on assign­ments.  If you count the half hour before school it appears our stu­dents, even though lunches are now mixed between ages, have plenty of time to social­ize with their friends and class­mates. 
Some arti­cles on the issue of later start times: 

Atten­dance

Atten­dance rate data can tell an inter­est­ing story about a school.  Stu­dent absences have decreased 37.9% .  It is our hope that the changes this school year have helped to cre­ate a more pos­i­tive dynamic learn­ing com­mu­nity at PND.  The data so far sup­ports the changes that are tak­ing place.  We look for­ward to ana­lyz­ing aca­d­e­mic data at the end of the first trimester.  We plan to keep you posted.   There are still a num­ber of issues that need our atten­tion and efforts to refine and enhance and we look for­ward to this work.

Char­lie Roy is the prin­ci­pal of Peo­ria Notre Dame High School in Peo­ria, IL.   His blogs include www.pndfaculty.blogspot.com, and www.soulycatholichs.blogspot.com  Peo­ria Notre Dame is one month into a new 5 X 3 trimester sched­ule with a later start time and a 1:1 lap­top pro­gram with Apple.