Chapter 12: A Research-practice Partnership Serving Students Experiencing Trauma: Best Practices Revealed by an Investigation of a Dropout Prevention Alternative School

More than 35 million students across the United States have experienced some form of trauma, with two-thirds of students in Oregon specifically experiencing trauma (Child and Adolescent Health Measurement Initiative, 2012;,Oregon Health Authority, 2019). Traumatic experiences can have serious negative impacts on students academically (i.e., Crozier & Barth, 2005), and these students need early and thorough intervention and support. One new alternative school (NAS) sought to fill the need and serve the community across six Oregon schools. NAS is a unique alternative school that it is both preventative (i.e., recruiting students in Grade 6 using key predictive indicators to prevent dropping out rather than reacting after the fact) and preparatory (i.e., striving to prepare students for postsecondary success). The NAS mission and goals are ambitious; however, no research appears to have been conducted on the success of NAS or similar preventative alternative school models to understand how experiences in these schools alter students’ outcomes. One school–university–community research-practice partnership, therefore, formed to fill this gap. The partnership serves as a vehicle to understand NAS student outcomes by working collaboratively with NAS to conduct a formative program evaluation to investigate the impact of the NAS model on students, many of whom experience trauma. The mixed-methods program evaluation collected and analyzed student data across one full school year, including attendance, two different student surveys, and in-depth, semistructured, one-on-one interviews with parents, students, and teachers. Results indicate success with supporting students experiencing trauma through the relationship-based culture and also reveals the complexities of reforming alternative schools.