How to reach at risk students?

We all know "those students".  Those students who talk back to the teacher, never complete assignments, and are the general "bad boy/girl" of the class.  As a student, those kids are the ones that  your parents do not let you go to their house or to the mall with.  As we become young adults, those students are the ones who tend to not make it to college or for that matter to the end of high school. 

As teachers, "those students" are our at risk students.  These students are the ones who teachers think about the most and are up at night worrying about.  Students who fall into this category of being at risk appear to have something in common, because they have all been lumped together.  However, at risk students come from such differing backgrounds it makes it almost impossible for teachers to make a general rule about them.  Students can be labeled at risk for a wide range of reason and each come into a teacher's classroom each day with lots of baggage because of this.

The question for educators is, how do we reach these at risk students, make them successful, and stay in school?  Students can be determined to be at risk for a number of reasons.  For many students, becoming at risk starts at school when they are very young.  Students who have low reading skills, tend to struggle more in school and school becomes harder and harder over times.  For certain students, this put them so far behind that their grades and overall progress in school suffers.  These students tend to not meet with success in the upper grades without the proper interventions.  Without someone stepping in and giving them the help they need with these skills, they fall behind.  Other students, the issues stem from unstable home situations and support.  Again over time these circumstances place these student further and further at risk, without the proper interventions.

Even though all of these at risk students are lumped together under one category, when many times they share very little in common, they do share one significant thing in common.  That commonality is, the need for interventions from their schools.  The importance of invention plans and programs within public schools is the key to helping reach these at risk students.  Increases support in the younger grades to reach these students who are not achieving in the areas of reading and math will help them to learn basic skills in these areas to help them later in the schooling.  Increased support and interventions for our students who come from low socioeconomic status or families who are low income or within the poverty line; will help to change the pattern of their lives and become sucessful.  With increased support by states and districts, teachers can be given the tools to put interventions in place before students go from at risk, to dropping out. 

The key for teachers is to identify students as at risk and then DO SOMETHING!  Identifying students as being at risk is just the first step in a long road in making a change.  Students who are at risk, need continued support and help to be able to find success in the classroom.