Stabilizing schools: inside Henry High's efforts to slow student churn

Henry teacher Rosa Costain supports Makaiya Eatmon as she writes an introductory email to her teachers during her third week of school. Eatmon transferred to Henry in October. Photo by David Pierini

By Becky Z. Dernbach Contributor

When Ariah Harden arrived at Patrick Henry High School last year, she wasn’t sure she wanted to stay. She had just moved to Minneapolis from California, and everything seemed different here. It was a “very stressful time,” she said.

After four months, Ariah decided to leave and enroll in an online school. She thought it would allow her to spend more hours working her job at a grocery store. But the self-directed nature of online scholarship was not a good fit for Ariah’s personality. She finished her sophomore year at Edison High School.

“I instantly was missing Henry so bad,” she said. She returned at the beginning of this year.

Ariah’s story of switching high schools four times in one year illustrates a Minneapolis trend. For a small but significant subset of students, the school district has a revolving door. Some students transfer in and out of schools multiple times in a year, looking for the right fit. 

Patrick Henry High School has one of the district’s highest “churn rates.” The churn rate is the percentage of students who transfer in or out during the school year. In the 2018-19 school year, Henry’s churn rate was 41%.

School and district officials say the high rate of student mobility can be disruptive for individual students and the school environment.

“The more schools they go in, the higher risk they are for falling behind and not performing at grade level,” said Colleen Kaibel, director of student retention and recovery for the Minneapolis Public Schools. “As your education is disrupted, your learning is disrupted.”

A growing share of students who live in Minneapolis are attending schools outside the district, threatening funding and educational opportunities for Minneapolis public schools, which are funded on a per pupil basis. The enrollment decline is particularly acute in North Minneapolis schools. Patrick Henry High School has lost an average of 53 students per year for the last three years. In the 2017-18 school year, Henry had to make $1.9 million in budget cuts. These cuts included positions for more than 20 teachers.

But the story of Northside school enrollment is not as simple as an exodus of students leaving MPS never to return. The net enrollment numbers seem to mask a more complicated story about Minneapolis student mobility. 

Data from the Minnesota Department of Education shows that churn disproportionately impacts black students. More than 55% of students who both transferred in and out of Minneapolis Public Schools between the 2015 and 2018 school years were black. Just 36% of the district’s students are black. 

According to MPS’ exit surveys of 131 families leaving the district in 2018, common reasons for leaving include moving, unmet family concerns, discipline issues and transportation. According to Julie Schultz Brown, who heads the district’s enrollment taskforce, other common reasons for leaving include school climate, and academics.

SLOWING HENRY'S REVOLVING DOOR

"It is very hard to stabilize a school when the door is moving so rapidly,” said Yusuf Abdullah, Henry’s principal.

Principal Abdullah believes his school’s high churn rate is also driving down other metrics at the school. The graduation rate, for example, declined from 80% to 71% last year. But the students who stayed at Henry for all four years still had an 80% graduation rate. Sixty-seven percent of students who enrolled in Henry their junior  year graduated, and only 60% of those who enrolled in Henry during their senior year did.

To mitigate the negative effects of churn, the school has developed several programs to support student engagement and retention.

The school has developed a transition course to help students who transfer mid-year to acclimate to the school. It is also developing more culturally supportive programs for black, Hmong, and Latinx students and working on racial equity with its predominantly white teachers, Principal Abdullah said. Creating a supportive campus climate for a school’s diverse community is a critical factor for retention, district administrators say. The school is also refocusing on academics as an International Baccalaureate (IB) world school and has restructured its support system for students. 

In the last few years, the school has cultivated an identity as “the Phamily”—the Patrick Henry family. Quinton Bonds, who coordinates public relations and family engagement at Henry, said he coined the term when he noticed the student body was starting to feel more unified than it had in the past. The Phamily includes students, their families, alumni and the community.

“We push that concept because we do know that home is where the heart is,” Principal Abdullah said. “But also stronger homes can create stronger schools, and stronger schools can create stronger communities.”

Students and teachers say the Phamily concept helps create a sense of community and belonging, which can lead to greater retention.

“The sense of belonging is really a strong indicator of a student’s ability to be successful,” Kaibel said.

Zay Manley, a sophomore from Brooklyn Park, enrolled at Henry at the beginning of his freshman year. After graduating from middle school at a charter school in Crystal, he didn’t know where to go for high school. He was glad to learn about programs like 100 Black Men Strong, which brings black professionals to Henry and sends black male students to the Capitol. 

At Henry, there’s “something for everybody,” Zay said. For him, that’s the debate and basketball teams. For some, it might mean an engineering class or the Herobotics team.

“That’s why I choose to stay here,” Zay said. “Because I love everything that I do.”

CREATING A SENSE OF BELONGING

In Rosa Costain’s seventh-hour Phamily Academy class, two new students are learning their way around the school. One is working independently on a laptop, crafting her first introductory email to her teachers. She’s been at Henry for a few weeks already. Costain sits with the second, newer student, asking questions to get to know her and her needs. What name does she prefer to go by? What are her preferred pronouns? Does she take any medications?

“I need a bus pass,” the student tells Costain. It’s her third day at her fifth high school. 

“Do you have money for one today?” Costain asks, springing into action. “Let’s see if we can grab one.” She hops on the classroom phone to find a transportation solution for the teenager.

Over the past few years, Henry has taken a proactive approach to develop new ways to better meet students’ needs and improve retention and recruitment. That’s meant looking for new funding strategies in a time of budget cuts.

Costain’s position was among those slashed in the budget cuts two years ago. This year, the district is funding her position to help with student transitions. In addition to several classes to support ninth graders transitioning to high school, she teaches one section of Phamily Academy, which is a short-term class for students who transfer in partway through the year.

As students spend a few weeks in Phamily Academy, they get to know how things work at Henry instead of having to figure it out on their own. Spending time in a small group with Costain also gives them the opportunity right away to develop a relationship with an adult in the building.

Being able to get to know students individually and communicate their needs to their other teachers makes a difference, Costain said.

“When you're in the thick of teaching and you have 26 kids in your class, you don't have time to find that information out,” she said. “But knowing that a student is, you know, transitioning from mom to dad's house and has a little brother that they really miss, those kinds of things really do help you figure out how to approach a student.”

Kenneth Purnell, a Henry senior who took part in Phamily Academy when it was first offered two years ago, said the class helped him transition after his family moved to Minneapolis from Arkansas.

“I actually didn’t want to leave the class to be honest,” he said. Without the class, he said, he “probably wouldn’t have got the full grasp of everything until senior year.”

Kenneth joined the step team and enrolled in IB classes. Now he’s a Link Leader, which means he helps show new students and visiting eighth graders around.

“This is basically my second home,” he said.

Henry has rolled out several other innovative programs in recent years to better meet student needs, and thus increase retention. The Henry Achievement Program is designed to help students who are behind in their coursework make up credits. Community Connected Academy started last year with funding from the Phillips Foundation, which also funds this publication. The program’s project-based curriculum allows students to focus on issues that relate to their lives out of school. 

When Ariah returned to Henry this fall, a counselor who noticed she was behind on credits suggested she enroll in CCA. Its block schedule means that Ariah can get her homework done in class, leaving more time for her job in the afternoons.

“Ever since I joined CCA, I’ve been doing really good in my classes,” she said.

The students’ first-quarter project in CCA focused on their identity. Ariah chose to do her project on feminism.

She said she appreciated being able to study a topic so relevant to her life. “It helps me prepare for my future if we’re learning about today’s problems instead of what happened in the past,” she said.

Costain, who has been at Henry for 12 years, said Henry has a history of innovation. “We’re constantly one of the first schools to adopt different initiatives, different ideas, different ways of thinking about doing school,” she said.

RETENTION FOR A DECLINING POPULATION 

As Henry’s Hmong family liaison, Adam Vue spends his days providing academic and emotional support to students. He serves as an advocate for Hmong students who are falling behind by working with their teachers, counselors and parents.

It’s a culturally responsive support strategy aimed at a declining population at Henry. The school’s Asian students comprise about 30% of the student body, down from 45% in 2011. 

Mr. Vue, who started his position in April, said his presence helps Hmong families feel welcome. "In the past they were unable to communicate with the staff here because of the language barriers,” he said. “Walking in here and having a Hmong staff available up front, they feel very pleased and very very welcome.”

A parent of recent Henry graduates himself, Mr. Vue has also become a community liaison, encouraging Hmong families to send their children to Henry. He tells parents about Henry’s high-performing academics in robotics, math and science. He reminds them that it’s more convenient to send their children to school in their neighborhood. Plus, at Henry there is a staff member to speak their language. And this year, Henry became the only school to offer IB Hmong language courses for both native and non-native speakers.

“Even when I’m not working, I still advocate for Patrick Henry High School,” he said.

Laichia Vang, a senior, said she hears from her older siblings about how Henry used to have more Hmong students. Her mom wanted her to go to the Blake School because she thought Henry had changed. But Laichia didn’t want to go to a predominantly white school. 

Laichia knows kids who have left Henry for charter schools. She’s sometimes considered leaving too. The negative stereotypes about Henry and other Northside schools weigh on her. “It’s not about the school,” she said. “It’s the outside world looking at us.” 

Laichia would like to see more teachers of color at Henry. She’s only had two teachers of color during her four years there. But the classes, sports, clubs and diversity make up for the bad parts, she said. 

“If I were to go to another school, I think it wouldn’t have been as great as Henry,” she said.

"IT'S NOT HOW PEOPLE SAY IT IS"

Students and staff say Henry’s reputation may be contributing to movement away from the school. Several current Henry students said they have faced community or family pressure to leave because of rumors about fights and violence at the school.

“The stereotypes and the negativity from media play a big role when you’re trying to convince an eighth grader to come to Henry,” Laichia said. “I think that’s why we’ve been losing numbers as years have gone by.”

Ninth-graders Maria Maylashungo, left, and Mya Lindsey join hands during an activity in Rosa Costain's PREP class at Henry High. The class is designed to help ninth-graders build social, emotional and academic skills they can apply both inside and outside of high school. Focusing on the transition to ninth grade is one of the school's retention strategies. Photo by David Pierini

While there are occasional fights at Henry, students said, the rumors are overblown and exacerbated by media attention to rare negative incidents.

“It’s not how people say it is,” said 16-year-old Nikya Hodges. “My grades went up.”

Nikya, a junior at Henry, came back to MPS this year after four years in Robbinsdale schools. She left the district in sixth grade when she got into fights as a response to being bullied, she said. But her behavior didn’t change much in Robbinsdale. After she was kicked out of her high school there, she persuaded her mom to let her return to Minneapolis schools.

Her mom worried the education at Henry wouldn’t be as good, and she’d heard rumors about fights and violence. But Nikya wanted to be back in her community. Since returning to Henry and enrolling in CCA, she hasn’t been getting in fights. Her grades have gone up. She’s taken up leadership roles and serves on the student council.

“My whole perspective of life changed because I’m with people I really know,” Nikya said. “You can change here.”

MOVEMENT IS A DISTRICT-WIDE CHALLENGE

Colleen Kaibel, MPS’ director of student retention and recovery, said the churn at Henry is not uncommon in the district.

“I don’t feel Henry is alone,” she said. “If it was, it would make our work a lot easier.”

Students’ stability is a critical factor to their success, she said.

“A lot of times they’re moving around trying to find a fit,” Kaibel said. “What we want to do is make where they’re at fit and really craft a comprehensive plan to provide the student with ample opportunities within our buildings to find success, because the more they move the more risk increases.”

Kaibel oversees two district level programs to help keep kids in school. Check and Connect is now in all the district’s high schools and some middle schools. The program pairs mentors with students who are disengaged. Data shows that this relationship leads to an increase in retention. She also oversees We Want You Back, which does outreach to students who have been out of school for more than 15 days.

Poverty and housing instability are important factors to the churn, she said. The new Stable Homes Stable Schools initiative could help keep students in one home and one school. So far, the program is in 15 elementary schools.

But the district has come to recognize that poverty isn’t the only explanation, Kaibel said. Campus climate and creating strong pathways from feeder schools are also critical to retention. “A lot of times at the high school level the family is exhausted,” Kaibel said. “Poor attendance doesn’t start in high school. It started many years ago.”

The district’s enrollment taskforce plans to present retention recommendations to the superintendent in January. Julie Schultz Brown, who heads the taskforce, says it is focusing on years that students transition between schools: from pre-K to kindergarten, 5th to 6th grade, and 8th to 9th grade. “That’s where we lose the most kids,” she said.

Brown said schools that are addressing retention well are building relationships with students from the beginning.

"If a student's having an issue and they have no relationship with a trusted adult, those are the kids that are rife for leaving because they don't have any sense of belonging,” she said. “So schools that are doing it well are providing services or programs or relationships that help students feel as a family like they belong, and that they're part of that community and that they're valued and wanted there.”

When Ariah came back to Henry this year, she felt welcome right away. The people here are “warmhearted,” she said. Even staff she didn’t know told her they had missed her, which helped her feel at home.

She’s grateful for the counselor who suggested she join CCA. It “literally probably saved my whole junior year,” Ariah said.

Since she’s been back at Henry, Ariah has seen how staff will help students with anything from housing to winter clothing. The teachers “work their butt off for us to succeed,” she said.

As the weather started getting colder, staff distributed jackets to students who needed them. One day she saw a stressed student confide in the assistant principal that he didn’t have a place to stay. The assistant principal immediately connected him with resources for housing help.

“Our school is not what people make it seem like it is,” Ariah said. “We have a lot to offer. We stick together. We’re the Phamily.”