Niagara Falls High School shows data tracker, highlights 62 college-credit courses and tiered interventions

Niagara Falls High School staff presented a live demonstration of a color-coded student tracker and summarized the high school's portfolio of college-credit coursework at the district board work session.

School leaders said the tracker lists each student and uses automated green/yellow/red coding on attendance, behavior referrals and coursework failures so staff can assign tiered interventions and monitor results. Presenters said the system is updated weekly and has been used for roughly three years. They said the high school serves about 2,000 students in a 420,000-square-foot building and that the tool helps staff identify students who need supports such as daily check-ins, in-school interventions and, in some cases, change of educational program.

District and school officials framed the tracker as a way to prevent students from “falling through the cracks.” The administration said one in-school intervention team (AIT) has had about 70 students on active caseloads at times and that roughly 35 students have cycled off that caseload; staff reported 24 students were reengaged through the AIT, while others remain coded as nonengaged. Administrators said the tracker includes cohort-entry dates so the team can monitor on-time graduation for each four-year cohort.

Administrators described the tracker’s columns for recent absences, absences over 10 weeks and total-year absences; coursework columns show failures this period and failures for the last marking period, and behavior columns show incident/referral counts. School staff said the system pulls discipline data from PowerSchool and is maintained by office staff on a weekly cadence.

The presentation also highlighted the high school’s college-credit offerings. Staff said Niagara Falls High School offers 62 college-credit-bearing courses taught through a mix of partner institutions, visiting college faculty, Zoom sessions, and district teachers approved by partner colleges. Partners named during the presentation included Niagara University, SUNY Niagara and other regional institutions; presenters said some students take courses on college campuses and that the district documents nonduplicated counts showing hundreds of students taking at least one college credit. Staff said 22% of 10th graders, 47% of 11th graders and 41% of 12th graders were taking at least one college credit in the snapshot presented.

Presenters tied the tracker and college-program expansion to other supports: an attendance outreach team that conducts home visits, an in-school interventionist team with small caseloads that does daily check-ins and mentoring, and a portfolio of nine alternative programs for students needing different placement or pathways. Staff described efforts to add industry certifications and to strengthen trades and pre-apprenticeship links with local partners and SUNY Niagara. The administration said some pathway students return to report they earned up to a year or more of college credit while in high school.

Board members asked about definitions and results: one board member asked how “behavior” is defined; staff responded it is the number of discipline referrals recorded in PowerSchool. Another asked which grade level struggles most; staff reported 10th grade, especially first semester, has been a central challenge. The superintendent and presenters described the district practice of reviewing student cases approximately every five weeks in Student Support Team (SST) meetings and assigning next interventions by tier.

The district also raised policy-related next steps: the board was told that a student representative seat must be filled under a New York state regulation effective July 1; the high-school team was asked to propose a selection process for the student representative by the next board presentation.

Board members and staff framed the tracker and the college-credit expansion as complementary: staff said the academic pathways and college opportunities are part of the same strategy to increase engagement, credits-accumulation and on-time graduation.

Ending

District leaders said they will continue to refine the tracker, expand supports and present a proposed student-representative selection process to the board in coming months. Administrators noted they will ask the board to approve additional college-course sections and to continue funding intervention teams as part of budget and personnel actions at future meetings.