Our Model
Project GRAD is a comprehensive national education-reform program with a record of improving the academic achievement and college going rates of students from low-income backgrounds. Project GRAD USA provides technical assistance, quality assurance, and a best practices network to local sites. The program takes an integrated approach to teaching and learning that hinges on mutually reinforcing structural components: academic support, classroom management, social services & parental engagement, and college access. The GRAD initiative focuses on sustainable, systemic change through a feeder pattern approach.
Core components are implemented in all schools in a feeder, with additional resources and support provided both within and outside the classroom. A feeder consists of a high school and all the middle and elementary schools that send or “feed” students to the high school. By implementing common approaches within a feeder, Project GRAD provides consistency in two important ways: It makes vertical consistency possible as children advance from grade to grade within a feeder and provides horizontal consistency across grades. This stability minimizes the disruption often experienced by children whose families change homes within the same community during the school year. The two high school feeders benefitting from Project GRAD Knoxville are Austin-East and Fulton. Ten elementary schools, two middle schools, and two high schools are served by Project GRAD Knoxville. Because of Knoxville’s designation as an Empowerment Zone, additional elementary schools of great need were able to be included although they may feed to other high schools.
In each Project GRAD city, an independent non-profit organization is established to work in partnership with the school system and community in overseeing the implementation of the components. Project GRAD actively seeks collaborative community engagement and provides an additional avenue for concerned individuals to support public schools in the urban community.
Our Goals
Knox County Schools has a 100/90/90/90 academic target (100% of an entering freshman class will graduate within four years; 90% of those will graduate with a regular diploma; 90% of those graduating with a regular diploma will have taken the ACT; and 90% of those who have taken the ACT will have scored a composite 21 or higher). In support of the Knox County Schools Excellence for All Children Strategic Plan, Project GRAD Knoxville focuses on: (1) increasing academic achievement, (2) increasing high school graduation rates, and (3) increasing college-going and success rates for students in District schools with Project GRAD.
