Teach Rural Oregon Joins GRAD Partnership

Teach Rural Oregon Joins GRAD Partnership

Teach Rural Oregon Joins GRAD Partnership

LA GRANDE, Ore. - Teach Rural Oregon, a program in the College of Education at Eastern Oregon University (EOU), is proud to announce it is joining the GRAD Partnership as its newest Intermediary and local partner for the state of Oregon.

As a GRAD Partnership Intermediary, Teach Rural Oregon will support the implementation of student success systems in local schools and districts with a focus on rural areas of Oregon. It will also work to involve additional partners in building a sustainable ecosystem for student success across the state.

As Oregon's designated Rural University, EOU cultivates innovative partnerships with communities across the region to expand economic and educational opportunities for all. Teach Rural Oregon aims to recruit diverse student teachers to complete their student teaching in rural and isolated districts across Oregon, and is also working with like-minded partners to address issues such as absenteeism, graduation rates, career-technical education/university degree attainment, and teacher retention in rural areas.

Student success systems build on earlier evidence-based student support models-such as early warning and on-track systems-to meet the new scope and scale of student needs emerging from the pandemic. Student success systems are a comprehensive, school-wide effort that integrates holistic, real-time data with student, parent, and educator insights to improve strategies that ensure students graduate from high school prepared for lifelong success. This framework ensures the right supports reach the right students at the right time, enabling schools to establish school-wide preventative efforts as well as quickly and effectively respond to emerging challenges at the school, grade, and individual levels.

By integrating supportive relationships and mindsets that promote student belonging and connectedness, student success systems help create school environments where every student feels welcome, supported, and motivated to succeed.

Student success systems originated from a collaboration among national education organizations responding to urgent student needs following pandemic-related school closures. Now in its third year, the GRAD Partnership has grown to include more than 200 districts across over 25 states. The initiative is driven by 12 national partners, all working together to ensure every student graduates high school ready for lifelong success. Teach Rural Oregon will join 15 other Intermediaries, including rural-serving GRAD Partnership Intermediaries in a Rural Cohort of Intermediaries, as part of a professional learning community, and will receive capacity-building support from a GRAD Partnership technical assistance provider.

"Some of the many issues facing rural Oregon school districts, particularly since the pandemic, include high absentee rates and low postsecondary degree attainment among students," explained Dave Dallas, Director of Teach Rural Oregon and an instructor in the College of Education at EOU. In the most recent Oregon Statewide Report Card, 38% of students statewide were chronically absent. At a local level, 10 of these districts reported that over 50% of their students were chronically absent, and all but two of these districts were 100% rural-serving districts.

A recent report from the Oregon Health Authority showed that rural counties in the state have some of the highest four-year high school graduation rates; however, these same counties had some of the lowest rates for postsecondary degrees among adults 25 or older. "As Teach Rural Oregon's mission evolves and matures, we don't just want to recruit teachers into these rural areas. We want to make sure that students are in school and have the tools and resources they need to further their education beyond high school, be it in the trades, community colleges, or higher education," said Dallas.

The capacity-building support from the GRAD Partnership will empower Teach Rural Oregon to build and improve student success systems in a cohort of schools. Recent data from the GRAD Partnership's Year Two Impact Report show that schools that began implementing student success systems in 2022-23 and continued using them in 2023-24 saw the average chronic absenteeism rate decline from 29% to 21% over two years, and the average course failure rate decline from 31% to 20% over two years. In ninth-grade classrooms, where early intervention is especially critical, results also showed meaningful improvement: the average ninth-grade chronic absenteeism rate declined from 31% to 26% over two years, and the average ninth-grade course failure rate declined from 32% to 22% over two years.

"We are thrilled to welcome Teach Rural Oregon as the newest GRAD Partnership Intermediary. Intermediaries are vital to our goals of ensuring all students have the support they need to graduate on a pathway to adult success. Because Intermediaries are trusted local partners with strong ties to their community, they are well-positioned to catalyze adoption of student success systems. Teach Rural Oregon brings a wealth of deep connections and local expertise and will be a valued partner in the national movement for student success," said Patricia Balana, GRAD Partnership Managing Director.

Dallas shared, "Teach Rural Oregon, and the College of Education at EOU, are excited to join this partnership and are confident that it will enhance the knowledge and tools we have available to assist rural school communities throughout Oregon."