| In recent years, the local school leadership in a suburban southern U.S. high school adopted innovative academic intervention programs to assist underperforming students but did not develop formal methods to evaluate program effectiveness. This gap in the professional practice continued with the inception of mandatory tutoring (MT), an intervention targeting failure rates among the school's lowest 10% of academic performers. Using professional learning community emphasis on pyramids of intervention as a theoretical foundation, a formative program evaluation was designed that sought to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the MT program. This research employed a mixed-methods triangulation design to analyze data from key stakeholders gained via 108 student surveys, 10 student interviews, and 2 teacher focus groups. Analysis included data transformation of frequency and chi-squared statistics from student surveys and coded data from student interviews and teacher focus groups. These data were triangulated to reveal key findings: MT afforded students time, motivation, and tutors to improve their grades but lacked sufficient resources and accountability measures to ensure attendance and academic success among all students. Recommendations for improvement include more peer tutors, improved collaboration with classroom teachers to generate common academic calendars and review guides, and an immediate response system to reduce student truancy. These recommendations will be presented to school leaders to improve MT components in order affect social change by helping struggling students find success. |
