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Pilot club program re-engaged nearly 400 students; district links participation to GPA, attendance gains
Summary
A district pilot led by Tony Kyrie Carrie and presented by Dr. Dixon re-engaged about 388 previously non-participating students across three high schools; data showed 49% of a tracked subgroup improved GPA and discipline incidents declined 26% among students who became involved.
District leaders presented results from a pilot designed to increase extracurricular participation among students who were not on activity rosters. Tony Kyrie Carrie described the outreach process at Kataba Ridge and other schools—collecting rosters, surveying students and running additional club-rush events—then Dr. Dixon summarized the outcomes.
Key findings presented by the district: Kataba Ridge reduced the share of students not engaged in at least one extracurricular to 16.9% (about 84% participation). Districtwide, staff reported re-engaging roughly 388 students; of a tracked analytic subgroup of 119 re-engaged students, 49% showed a GPA improvement, 32% showed no change and a small share experienced a slight decline. Discipline incidents among the re-engaged group declined by about 26% between semesters, and the district recorded an 8% decline in unexcused absences for the cohort studied.
Project approach and recommendations: The pilot targeted ninth graders and recommended starting the intervention earlier (middle school, eighth grade) to build sustained participation. Staff suggested repeating club-rush opportunities each semester, providing some club meeting time during the school day (flex or scheduled time) to remove transportation barriers, and using multimedia promotion (short clips on the website) to introduce students to available clubs.
Board reaction: Trustees and the superintendent praised the results and discussed expanding consistent club-time at the middle-school level to normalize participation. The administration said it will consider adding software or staff support to scale the program but intends to trial the cost-neutral approach first.
Why it matters: The district framed extracurricular participation as an element of the broader strategy to reduce chronic absenteeism and close achievement gaps; the pilot's early data link extracurricular engagement to modest academic and behavioral gains in the sample studied.
