Spotlight of an Odds-Beater: Dreaming Big at Malverne Senior High School
By Catherine Kramer, Research Assistant for NYKids
Caring, collaboration, and collegiality are at the core of Malverne Senior High School. When confronted with students who are facing serious challenges, educators at Malverne point to the power of caring for kids as individuals above all.
As one teacher explained, “You can’t sit there and say, ‘I’m going to beat the odds with these kids.’ You have to say, ‘They are kids.’” Positive and productive relationships among students and between students and adults are highly valued and supported by visionary leaders and staff who collaborate to help students find success both within and beyond high school.
Malverne is situated about thirty miles from New York City in a working-class community. Although graduation rates in 2005 were only 77%, by the late 2010s, Malverne was graduating over 90% of its students with closure of graduation rate gaps by student subgroups. Staff members credited the turnaround at Malverne to a change in school culture and vision based in the shared mantras of “failure is not an option” and “all hands are on deck.”
Through a mindset of “dreaming big,” Malverne promotes success among its student population with an emphasis on high academic and behavioral expectations. The school launched the “Dream Program,” which is based on the superintendent’s premise, “You have to have a dream” in order to get the most of your education and life. Starting with a “Dare to Dream” program in the middle school, leaders spread the program’s framework vertically to the elementary and high schools, so that “each cohort would have that whole vision and support,” explained the superintendent.
Read the complete Malverne Senior High School case study.
Malverne is situated about thirty miles from New York City in a working-class community. Although graduation rates in 2005 were only 77%, by the late 2010s, Malverne was graduating over 90% of its students with closure of graduation rate gaps by student subgroups. Staff members credited the turnaround at Malverne to a change in school culture and vision based in the shared mantras of “failure is not an option” and “all hands are on deck.”
Through a mindset of “dreaming big,” Malverne promotes success among its student population with an emphasis on high academic and behavioral expectations. The school launched the “Dream Program,” which is based on the superintendent’s premise, “You have to have a dream” in order to get the most of your education and life. Starting with a “Dare to Dream” program in the middle school, leaders spread the program’s framework vertically to the elementary and high schools, so that “each cohort would have that whole vision and support,” explained the superintendent.
Read the complete Malverne Senior High School case study.