High School Dropouts and Middle School

This is a fantastic video from Frontline about how a student's middle school experience--even in sixth grade--can predict whether or not that child will drop out of high school: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/education/dropout-nation/middle-school-moment/ The video states that if a sixth-grade student in a high-poverty school is present less than 80 percent of the time, fails math or English, or receives a poor behavior grade in a core course, that student has a 75 percent chance of dropping out of high school without EFFECTIVE intervention. This challenges me to resolve to EFFECTIVELY intervene for my students with high absence rates. It's easy to make calls home and leave it at that, but each student needs someone FIGHTING for them to be at school when they have many obstacles to overcome in order to be here.