BARR (Building Assets, Reducing Risks) is designed to create strong schools and communities by empowering students, teachers, and families with data, so that schools can re-align existing resources to nurture a unified and personalized culture of support and success for every student, both inside and outside of the classroom. Created by a high school counselor, BARR has been proven to improve outcomes for students and is now utilized by schools throughout the country.
Turning Education R&D Investments into Impact
Created by a high school counselor, BARR evolved with the support of strategic federal investments in education R&D.
$ 5 million
$5 million from an Investing in Innovation Development grant
$ 12 million
$12 million from an Investing in Innovation Validation grant
$ 20 million
$20 million from an Investing in Innovation Scale-Up grant
The impact of these investments is clear:
350 +
350 schools, across 22 states, utilize BARR
350000 +
350,000+ students served
Scaling Up An Evidence-Based Model For Student Success
For most students, the transition from middle school to high school is daunting. Amidst the inherent difficulties of early adolescence, transitioning to a new school with older students and higher-level courses is challenging on all fronts. What can schools do to support students during this time? With the help of strategic federal investments, the Building Assets-Reducing Risks (BARR) program answered this question with evidence-backed results.
BARR founder Angie Jerabek recognized the challenges facing incoming freshmen. “I developed the BARR model when I was a high school counselor because I had really strong beliefs that the students were incredibly talented and so was the staff,” she said. “Yet we went five years running with half the kids failing.”
Jerabek realized that the traditional school model is not built in a way that connects the dots between students, their talents, and their relationships with teachers. She set out to change that.
“BARR provided [a] platform for students to find themselves, to develop self confidence, to learn how to socialize and communicate with each other… It also provided that other ability for our teachers to identify students before they slip through the cracks.”
How It Works
The BARR model focuses on eight school-wide and individual strategies that encourage positive student-teacher relationships and greater understanding of student data to address both course-specific and non-academic barriers to student success. With evidence-based practices, the BARR model is a proven solution that school leaders can implement to improve student outcomes.
Proven Results
The BARR program began in 1998 at St. Louis Park High School in Minnesota. By 2010, the program had received funding to test the model’s effectiveness in other schools—one large, suburban high school in California and two high schools in rural Maine – to test its effectiveness in different contexts.
The results were more than promising. Freshmen students who went through BARR programming earned more course credits, higher grade point averages, higher standardized test scores, and a lower rate of course failure compared to their non-BARR classmates. Notably, students who were previously identified as lower achievers significantly outperformed their non-BARR counterparts in overall course credits completed and on standardized tests. BARR has also been found to increase teacher retention rates.
Federal investments supported BARR’s ability to prove that the results at one high school were not limited to one local context. Because of the i3 funding, schools interested in adopting BARR programming can now rely on rigorous evidence supporting the program’s efficacy.
Today, BARR is celebrating its 25th anniversary and is a well-established center with programming used by more than 350 schools nationwide in 22 states and the District of Columbia. BARR has not only helped more than 350,000 students experience success in their transition from middle school to high school, but it has also changed how educators understand and approach supporting students.
The program is showing how schools can improve student outcomes significantly by increasing transparency around data and student performance and prioritizing relationships between faculty and students. The program has repeatedly proven its ability to increase student engagement and teacher satisfaction, while reducing chronic absenteeism, and more.