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Cedar Springs High presentation links students’ sense of connection to sharply lower failure rates
Summary
Presenters told the board that a district survey of 751 students found those who said they lacked an authentic connection to staff were about 5.1 times more likely to fail a class; staff identified 209 disconnected students as a targeted intervention group and described weekly failure‑rate monitoring.
Cedar Springs High School staff told the board May 11 that a focused push to strengthen student–staff relationships appears to have a measurable effect on course failure rates.
"For most of high school, I felt invisible, just a face in the crowd. Now ... teachers don't just see me, they know my story," one senior wrote in the student survey quoted by the presenter. The presenter, identified in the meeting as Miss P, said the district cross‑referenced 751 survey responses with PowerSchool failure data and applied a chi‑square test to examine the relationship between students’ reported connectedness and academic standing.
Miss P said the analysis showed students who responded that they did not feel an authentic connection to at least one staff member were about 5.1 times more likely to appear on a failing‑grade report. She said 41.1% of failing students fell into the 'disconnected' category and that staff had identified 209 disconnected students as the highest‑impact group for interventions delivered during the district’s targeted intervention time.
Miss P and the district’s interventionist, Miss Hess, described how routine data pulls and small‑group interventions are already in place: Miss Hess runs weekly failure‑rate reports, and the targeted "sore time" intervention is being used to draw disconnected students into academic supports paired with one‑on‑one relationship building.
"It doesn't take much, but it takes our staff and they're incredibly good at small moments of genuine connection," Miss P told the board, adding that moving a student from 'disconnected' to 'connected' increased their chance of passing a class by roughly 80 percent in the district dataset.
Board members asked about methodology and scaling. Presenters said the data come from the 2026 student survey question about whether a student believes at least one staff member knows them personally; they described the statistical test and cross‑referencing with PowerSchool student IDs. Staff recommended using existing schedules and intervention blocks to scale targeted contacts while preserving teacher workload and anti‑burnout strategies.
The presentation closed with staff emphasizing that the initiative is both relational and data driven: weekly monitoring flags students for small‑group academic and relational interventions, and trainings such as Youth Mental Health First Aid and the "Every Student Known" playbook are provided to staff.
The board did not take a formal action on the presentation itself; staff said the data and targeted‑intervention approach would guide ongoing practice and monitoring.
