Special education department teacher and Multi-Classroom Leader Brad Williford works with a student in Room 134 on Nov. 28, 2023. Williford began as one of two Multi-Classroom Leaders at Clarke Central High School, which was a new faculty position instituted at the beginning of the 2024-25 school year to provide support to freshmen. “For us here at (CCHS), we’re kind of unique (because) we are focusing (Multi-Classroom Leaders on) special education students, and our overall goal is graduation rate,” Williford said. “To help with overall graduation rate is to make sure when students show up here in ninth grade, they get the support they need.” Photo by Aza Khan
Multi-Classroom Leaders were introduced as a new faculty position to CCHS at the beginning of the 2024-25 school year to support freshmen and increase graduation rates.
In order to support struggling underclassmen as well as teachers at Clarke Central High School, Multi-Classroom Leaders (MCLs) were introduced for the 2024-25 school year as an extra set of hands in special education department classrooms, which are collaborative with on-level and English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) students.
The position is a part of the larger concept of “Opportunity Culture,” which aims to address every student’s needs. According to Associate Principal Dr. Summer Smith, having MCLs in classes not only increases the level of support for students but also allows for splitting a larger class into smaller groups to tailor learning.
“(MCLs) go into all the freshman classes, and are supporting most of our on-level core classes. They support all the teachers and students, (and try) to help build that collaborative model,” Smith said. “It is a way to break down a class of 30 into smaller pieces so that more one-on-one instruction can happen.”
“If we could demonstrate that this is a successful initiative, then it can be expanded to other places in the district,”
— Brad Williford,
CCHS Multi-Classroom Leader
Currently, there are two MCLs at CCHS: Brad Williford and Lawanna Knight. Williford works with literature and government classes and Knight works with algebra and biology. According to Smith, MCLs involvement in these core subjects was adopted with the intent to increase pass rates in the Freshman Academy, and eventually graduation rates.
“We feel that if (we) just focus on seniors in terms of graduation rate, it’s too late. Most kids who are actually dropping out do it sometime in ninth and 10th grade,” Smith said. “Freshmen (also) come here and fail all their core classes. (We’re) trying to figure out what we can do to help make that transition from middle to high school (smooth) in a way that helps kids find success.”
Williford is hopeful that in the coming years, the position will expand to 10th grade classes as well as other schools in CCSD and neighboring districts.
“If we could demonstrate that this is a successful initiative, then it can be expanded to other places in the district,” Williford said. “Because we’re the only (school) doing (it) here in the state, there’s a possibility that if we’re shown as a district that is successful (and) we’ve implemented Opportunity Culture, then other school systems will contact us and see what we’re doing, and it can spread from there.”
