A recent study found that ninth grade students with less than a C average are more likely to drop out than graduate high school – but students with a B average or better in ninth grade graduated 95% of the time.  Students who fail Algebra I in ninth grade are four times more likely to drop out of high school.  Quite literally, 9th grade is a critical time in students’ lives. The tasks should be understable for students. If one of the students prefers to buy a persuasive essay instead of writing it, that means they have no quality resources and the task is not explained in a correct way.

At the beginning of the OnTrack! program, students have an extremely difficult time connecting their beliefs about the future and the lives they want to have with the concrete steps they must take to get there. They find it challenging to  articulate what they can do now – in the eighth and ninth grades – to succeed.  CCC works with students so they realize the impact of education, and academic success, on their futures lives.  We help youth understand the critical importance of continuing their education, especially when they are struggling academically.

According to our program evaluation, before participating in CCC’s OnTrack! program, 93% of students reported that they had never been introduced to the fundamental information about college, careers, and planning that CCC taught them.