Greenville County Schools: Teen Leadership

The OnTrack Greenville Initiative is a collective impact dropout-prevention program for middle grade students. To help students improve behavior and stay on track toward graduating on time, Greenville County Schools offered the Teen Leadership course. The Teen Leadership curriculum targets middle school students to support leadership development and character education. Greenville County Schools offered the course at four OnTrack Greenville treatment schools between 2015 and 2018.

Study Goals:

This study aimed to assess the impact of the Teen Leadership course on student behavior and social-emotional outcomes.

Research Questions:

The study included confirmatory, exploratory, and implementation questions. The research questions were:

• Confirmatory Question:
  • Did students who participated in the Teen Leadership course have fewer behavioral incidents when compared to matched comparison students?
• Exploratory Questions:
  • Following participation in the Teen Leadership course, were students more likely to report the following benefits compared to matched comparison students:
    • Improved academic performance in math and English language arts?
    • Healthy relationships with peers and adults at school?
    • An improved self-concept?
    • An improved sense of personal responsibility?
    • Improved social competence?
    • Improved confidence in their public speaking skills?
    • Improved self-confidence?
    • Improved school engagement?
    • Improved attitude toward learning?
• Implementation Questions:
  • How did implementation of the Teen Leadership course at each school compare with the intended design? Which aspects of the design were modified at each school, if any?
  • What positive youth development behaviors did students attribute to the Teen Leadership course overall? What aspects of the program did students prefer over others?
  • To what extent did this course affect changes in school-wide culture and/or practice?

Findings:

The study found the following:

• Confirmatory Findings:
  • Fall Teen Leadership students were less likely to have received any in-school suspension in the following spring semester than matched comparison students.
  • There were a small number of significant behavior results in the wrong direction such as increased behavioral referrals.
• Exploratory Findings:
  • Overall, the differences in course performance between Teen Leadership students and matched comparison students were not significant.
  • Fall Teen Leadership students reported having stronger relationships with teachers than their matched counterparts in academic year 2016-17 and 2017-18.
  • There were no significant differences in academic self-confidence and academic perseverance between Teen Leadership students and matched comparison students.
• Implementation Findings:
  • The evaluation found that Greenville County Schools implemented the Teen Leadership course structure with high fidelity.
  • In academic year 2016-17, students who participated in Teen Leadership saw statistically significant increases from pre-test to post-test in their ability to feel relaxed when giving a speech.
  • Teachers reported that the implementation of Teen Leadership did not appear to affect school culture immediately, as it may take time for these changes to manifest.

For more information, download the full report and report brief.