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Apple Valley’s BARR program credited with reducing ninth‑grade failure rates; district plans expansion
Summary
Administrators, assistant principals and students described the Building Assets and Reducing Risks (BARR) program at Apple Valley High School, showing early data on lower failure rates and announcing districtwide rollout to three other comprehensive high schools next fall.
Apple Valley High School administrators told the school board on Feb. 10 that the Building Assets and Reducing Risks (BARR) approach — an interdisciplinary, relationship‑and‑data program for ninth graders — produced meaningful early gains in course completion, attendance and behavior and will expand to the district’s other comprehensive high schools next fall.
Principal Drew Mons, Assistant Principals Pete Biscans and Bill Blatzheim described a model that places students into interdisciplinary "houses" (teacher teams sharing roughly 80–90% of the same students), builds weekly "I‑time" social‑emotional lessons, and uses a shared spreadsheet to track grades and interventions. "We see higher course completion rates. We're seeing improved attendance and decreased behavior issues," Mons said.
Key outcomes and rollout District presenters said Apple Valley began a focused BARR implementation two years ago with two houses and expanded to a third house this year;…
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