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The Mobile County Public School System, Mobile Area Education Foundation, and Diploma Plus will develop a 5-year (2010-15) systemic middle school and high school dropout prevention, intervention, and recovery initiative called the RAMP to Graduation Initiative at Ben Cato Rain High School in Mobile, AL and its feeder school, Palmer Pillans Middle School. B.C. Rain has a school dropout rate of 3.68% which is over twice the state’s rate of 1.52%. The goals of the RGI are to (1) prevent students from dropping out in high school by transforming B.C. Rain into an Early College and Career school, (2) prevent students at Pillans from falling behind by transforming teaching, learning and intervening with at-risk youth through the RAMP-UP initiative, and (3) provide intensive intervention and recovery to overage, under credited and dropout students through the Diploma Plus Academy (DPA). The RAMP Grant will (1) integrate a rigorous curriculum at Rain, (2) provide intensive professional development to Rain staff, and (3) promote change through school reconstitution and pay incentives. The activities to meet the Grant objectives include utilizing the Ford –PAS Transformation model, implementing the College Board Spring Board (Pre-AP) curriculum, increasing the number of students participating in Advanced Placement, dual enrollment and career academies, providing staff professional development, employing an instructional specialist, and attracting new staff through school reconstitution and pay incentives. The Pillans Transformation and RAMP-UP will: (1) create a Pre-AP curriculum to increase academic rigor, (2) provide intensive dropout prevention support through the RAMP-UP Initiative, and (3)promote change through school reconstitution and pay incentives. RGI will utilize SpringBoard (Pre-AP) at Pillans, strengthen vertical curriculum alignment and inquiry-based learning with the support of an instructional specialist, provide a middle school advocate to meet at-risk students’ social/emotional needs, offer extended learning options, provide an intensive summer high school transition program (RAMP-UP) for rising 9th grade students, and attracting new staff through school reconstitution and pay incentives. The grant is the result of a partnership between the Mobile County Public Schools (MCPSS) and the Mobile Area Education Foundation (MAEF). The MCPSS School Board appointed Marion Firle as principal of B.C. Rain High and Edward Sanderson as principal of Pillans Middle to implement the transformation of the two schools. If you are in need of additional information please contact Jeremiah Newell (MAEF) at476-0002 or Dr. Lynda Carroll (MCPSS) at 221-4160.