WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW
- Educators at a Tennessee town’s only high school have been making a difference by acting on needs that students tell to them.
- Changes as simple as making a school office more-open and less institutional-looking are making students more eager to engage with staffers to discuss and plan their futures.
- Student interactions have helped educators make coursework more relevant to students’ career interests.
- Give-and-take among educators and students may be a factor in the school’s rising measures of achievement, such as graduation rates, which rose even during the pandemic.
The main office at Elizabethton High School in rural northeast Tennessee wasn’t always a place students enjoyed visiting. Even though the two counselors for students had their own small offices within the space, student Jayci Bowers said, “it just felt really closed off to students.”
Today, that front office has been completely transformed into the Cyclone Student Center, named for the school’s mascot. Its old wooden door was replaced with a glass one students can see through. Inside, they’re greeted by warm lighting, a wall covered with college pennants and Cyclone memorabilia. There are small desks and high-top tables where they can work on college applications and a zen garden for relaxation.
“I feel like I’m walking into a place where I can hang out and chill,” Bowers said.
The school also doubled the number of counselors in the center — at the students’ request — by adding two who focus on college and career exploration and advising.
The high school of about 850 students is now a thriving community hub, with a student liaison to the local school board, a coffee shop designed and run by students and a community partnership advisory group that meets monthly — so local businesses and higher education institutions stay connected to students exploring their future.
“Our community believes in progress,” assistant principal Sheri Nelson said. Elizabethton is a small city of about 14,000 people with just one public high school in a region that was hit hard by the opioid crisis. Nelson said people believe the students “need to bring the progress to the community. They don’t want our students to go somewhere else.”
Staff and students say these changes illustrate how listening to students can take a high school in a new, more vibrant direction. Students have been playing a bigger role at Elizabethton High School ever since its selection as an XQ Super School in 2017. They encouraged the school to add project-based learning classes for community improvements, entrepreneurship and teaching as a profession.
Only 21.5% of Elizabethton’s adults have a bachelor’s degree, according to the U.S. Census. The high school had already created a course to help seniors prepare for college. But some students needed additional support and guidance, said Dusty Duncan, one of the school’s two college and career advisors.
“In the upper East Tennessee area as a whole, generational poverty is a prevalent issue that affects so many students and families,” he explained, adding that the high school’s staff are committed to ensuring all students, regardless of background, get the resources they need to succeed.
Giving students more options
In September, about 150 students — mostly seniors — attended a college fair in the local area. Group visits were then scheduled to all different types of colleges, universities and technical schools.
Throughout the fall and winter, seniors get regular updates about scholarship opportunities and are notified about special weeks when state school applications are free. The Cyclone Student Center sends out a monthly newsletter to families and coordinates daily in-school visits from college, military and career professionals.
Gracie Fields, a senior who plans to study fishery and wildlife science, found the scholarship newsletter useful.
“There are a couple that I’ve actually gotten that have been extremely helpful that I wouldn’t have known about if they hadn’t made those announcements,” she said, adding that she won a full ride to attend her first choice school, Tennessee Tech University. She said she and her older brother are the first members of their family to go to college.
As the school’s student liaison, Fields also encourages her peers to visit the student center, where counselors help them fill out college and financial aid applications. Bowers said she applied to more schools than planned after learning about scholarships.
Among Elizabethton’s graduating seniors in 2022, more than half already earned dual enrollment credits at local colleges and universities. Dual enrollment programs have expanded in Tennessee with state funding and Elizabethton now partners with six local post-secondary institutions.
By actively including all students in post-high school planning, Elizabethton offers a more holistic definition of school success, said XQ Head of Schools Mary Ryerse.
“As a country, we have a shallow definition of a ‘successful high school’ based on Advanced Placement enrollment or graduation rates,” she explained. “But we don’t look often enough at whether schools are helping students advance their concrete post-secondary plans by taking dual enrollment courses, applying for scholarships and seeking additional sources of financial aid.”
Elizabethton’s counselors also encourage students to pursue industry training. Last year, 12% of its graduates got into the Tennessee College of Applied Technology, an increase from five percent in 2018. Nelson said that’s a plus because some of those students might not otherwise have had a post-graduation plan.
It’s too soon to say what impact Elizabethton High School’s new student center is making on college-going, especially at a time when fewer students are opting for college. But in 2022, Elizabethton High School’s leaders said 94% of its 185 seniors filled out applications with the state’s Tennessee Promise program. And 89% filled out their FAFSA forms. The school’s 93% on-time graduation rate for 2022 exceeded the state’s and even rose despite the pandemic.
Nelson said listening to students is key to improving a school and its greater community. She hopes Elizabethton High School can keep its two college and career advisors after their funding runs out this year because getting a college degree helps students “take care of their own” — their families and their city.
This story comes from our partner, The 74. The 74 is an independent, nonprofit national education news website dedicated to covering issues affecting America’s 74 million children. It was produced in partnership between The 74 and the XQ Institute. Visit them online at The74Million.org.
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