My Action Research Plan

Here is the action research plan that my site supervisor and myself agreed upon.  I am really excited about this project because the Freshman Academy is new to my campus this year so I will be conducting this research during our first year.  The results of my research will be used to proactively work on the academy for next year.  So as Dr. Kirk Lewis, Superintendent, Pasadena ISD suggested for action research it is "practical" for what it happening now.

Does the implementation of a freshman academy ease the transition for students between middle school and high school thus improving student success on EOC scores and their overall GPA?

     Over the last couple of years my campus has been having problems with freshman attendance, tardiness, and discipline.  To add the icing on the cake, the state of Texas has now implemented EOC tests, though these tests have been drastically reduced in the last couple of months to only five, three of them will occur during the freshman year. The administrators on my campus are concerned and with good reason about our scores.  Though our scores are not the lowest in the state there has not been much improvement.  So, the question is why and how can we fix it?

The question posed would be answered by comparing the characteristics of a freshman academy to a regular school situation and analyzing the tardiness, attendance, and discipline to see if this made a difference in EOC scores and their overall GPA.

                      

Solving this wondering will hopefully decrease tardiness, absences and failure rate, increase EOC scores and GPA, and help the freshman to feel better about their transition from middle school to high school to ensure the overall success of the freshman academy.