BUILDING A FOUNDATION OF SUCCESS: HIGH TECH HIGH CONSORTIUM SUCCESS STORY
Chris White of High Tech High Consortium and team use Success Planning to provide foundational tools that promote individualized success at any level. The High Tech High model has achieved extraordinary success with a diverse student population as evidenced by its students’ matriculation to four-year institutions and bachelor’s degree obtainment.
Chris White began his role as the Director of College Advising in the fall of 2002 when he advised 50 students from the first graduating class of High Tech High School (HTH) in San Diego, California.
Chris admits his former system was not technical. “Before Naviance Succeed, I would keep all my information in Microsoft Access, but I needed to keep up with the constant changes.” In order to meet HTH’s growing needs, the school purchased Naviance Succeed.
HTH has expanded to 5 campuses serving 2,450 students in grades 9 through 12. With the expansion, Chris knows HTH’s use of Naviance Succeed has expanded as well. “Naviance [Succeed] has become more than a college advising tool, it has become a tool for our whole team to use to help our students be successful.”
Naviance Succeed unites students, families, teachers, counselors, and administrators in a shared mission to promote, measure, and improve college and career readiness. Naviance Succeed equips HTH with a college and career readiness solution to support its five strategies to change their local community: enact, inspire, enable, develop, and influence.
ENACT: Naviance engages students through a structured and guided process that fosters ownership in the students’ success planning and career.
INSPIRE: “Naviance provides students with tangible tools which inspire kids to achieve success and show [them] a variety of possibilities based on their input.” White continues, “When a student sees the scattergram and understands the possibilities of college. That is very powerful.”
ENABLE: Chris emphasizes, “When you provide students with specific data on their preferences, you give students the confidence to do better.”
DEVELOP: One of White’s goals is to ensure his students are accountable for their career and college exploration. As a best practice, White strongly encourages students to use Family Connection to organize their college application information by saving journal entries for each college. This helps students keep their information together and empowers them to take ownership in the process.
INFLUENCE: HTH serves a student body that reflects the ethnic and socioeconomic diversity of the community. White fosters peer counseling to empower the school’s student leaders to connect with fellow students. “The more kids can see others using Family Connection and get something out of it, the more they will use it too.”
The Results
High Tech High model has achieved extraordinary success with a diverse student population as evidenced by its students’ matriculation to four-year institutions and earning bachelor’s degrees. The results below are from HTH’s recent National Student Clearinghouse® data supporting HTH’s strive for excellence:
- 76 percent of students enrolled in college by the fall following graduation
- 81 percent of students enrolled in college during the first year after high school
- 90 percent of students returned for sophomore year of college
- 46 percent of 2003 HTH graduates have earned a bachelor’s degree
- 37 percent of 2004 HTH graduates earned a bachelor’s degree
- 40 percent of 2005 HTH graduates earned a bachelor’s degree
Note: HTH subscribes to the National Student Clearinghouse® service and imports student outcomes data from StudentTracker® High School files into Naviance Succeed.
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