Getting back on track at Twilight

Abstract

The Twilight School at Danbury High School in Connecticut helps students who are in danger of failing their freshman year to get back on track. In its first year, the program offered special credit-bearing after-school courses in biology and English to students who failed those classes in their first semester. The smaller class sizes and informal atmosphere engaged the students and enabled the DHS educators who taught these courses to experiment with new-to-them instructional techniques, such as blended learning, some of which were later rolled out schoolwide. Of the 75 students who completed the course, 64 earned credits that helped them advance to their sophomore year.