Prevention Instead of Intervention

A few years into my teaching career, the school year started on a Wednesday. On Friday, the 3rd day of school, two of my 9th graders cut my class.

Red flag. BIG red flag. I know that teenagers have been known to cut class, but 9th graders? On the 3rd day of school? That's not normal. That's a sign of bad things to come.

I saw this as an opportunity to prevent what I saw as a clear sign of the future. I went to my department chair and told her what happened and that my prediction was if we didn't step in and do something, these children would fail Algebra and maybe not even graduate on time (if ever). Her response was, "Let's wait to see how they do on the first report card."

I couldn't believe it! She was telling me that we had to wait for them to fail before we could take any action to fix the problem.

1. It should be clear that there IS a problem.
2. Once a problem has been identified, action should be taken to prevent it from getting worse.
3. As educators and professionals, we should not allow students to dig themselves into a hole that we know they are not equipped to climb out of.

Back then, I was shocked that this was the school's response. By now I'm much less surprised; this is how our system works.

What I want to know is, aside from alerting parents and guidance counselors and administrators to our concerns, what can schools do to prevent students from skipping down the path of failure instead of waiting until it's probably too late and attempting what is often an unsuccessful intervention?

(By the way, I was right about the two students who cut on the 3rd day of school. This became a pattern of behavior, among a host of other issues, and they failed tests, marking periods, courses, and so on. Once the ball was in motion, there was no stopping it.)