Building Better Futures: New Castle’s Next Generation SIG Story
Over the last four years, New Castle Community Schools strategically invested $4.3 million from Indiana’s Next Generation School Improvement Grant (SIG) to transform teaching and learning experiences in both the middle school and high school. The work focused on four areas:
Expanding and enriching high school pathways and increasing the number of postsecondary credentials students earned
Providing a continuum of college and career exploration experiences in grades 6-12
Accelerating academic growth and proficiency
Developing student employability skills
High School Pathways & Postsecondary Credentials
In the fall of 2022, well before Indiana formally adopted new diploma requirements, New Castle began exploring how to offer high school pathways connected to regional economic needs and student interests. While the New Castle Career Center offered several pathways New Castle High School didn’t offer any. By collaborating with students, staff, local employers, and community partners, New Castle developed 16 new pathways.
At the same time, New Castle worked with the University of Indianapolis’s Center of Excellence in Leadership of Learning (CELL) to become an Early College High School. As a result, 26 students (approximately 15% of the senior class) earned the Indiana College Core, a transferable set of 30 credits applicable to any state college or university. Plus, eight students earned associate degrees, saving thousands of dollars in tuition and considerable time as they continue their postsecondary education.
In total, 93 students (more than half of the senior cohort) earned a college or career credential during the 2025-2026 school year.
College & Career Exploration Continuum
To help students engage in their learning and develop a vision for their lives after high school, career coaches developed a continuum of college and career exploration experiences that started in middle school and culminated in work-based learning opportunities in high school. Field trips to colleges, universities, non-profit organizations, and businesses enabled students to connect what they were learning in the classroom to the real world. In addition, New Castle hosted career cafes, where professionals visited during lunch hours to share information about their jobs with students who had indicated interest in a similar field. As a result, students were able to make conceptual understandings of various careers more concrete while beginning to build a network of local leaders they might connect with for years to come.
Systems for Accelerating Academic Growth & Proficiency
Academic achievement is a critical prerequisite for many postsecondary opportunities. To help students accelerate their learning, New Castle refined its multi-tiered system of supports (MTSS). This required the development of data systems that made insights into formative assessment data visible to students and teachers so that instructional groups could be formed quickly. To support such groups flexibly, dedicated blocks of time were built into the schedule to allow students to receive personalized help. In addition, some students participated in high-dosage tutoring, a proven strategy for academic intervention.
New Castle also adopted and implemented new ELA and math curriculum to bring Indiana’s academic standards to life. Instructional coaches helped teachers navigate the curricula’s many components and develop a playbook specific to New Castle. Collaborative planning meetings allowed teachers to learn from each other, review student work, and plan future lessons.
Employability Skills
At the state and national levels, chronic absenteeism is a major concern. At the start of the grant period, community partners and business leaders indicated this was a concern for many employees, too. For this reason, New Castle hired an attendance liaison to help students and families overcome barriers to regular school attendance. By the end of the grant period, the percentage of students attending school at least 94% of the time increased by 31%, and the percentage of chronically absent students decreased by 16%.
In addition, New Castle refined its behavior coaching supports and disciplinary systems, resulting in a 22% decline in in-school suspensions and 43% decline in out-of-school suspensions.
Together, these results represent thousands of additional hours focused on learning.
Sustainability
Throughout the life of the grant, New Castle kept sustainability top of mind. The dramatic increase in the number of career and technical education (CTE) credits as well as postsecondary credentials earned has led to more than $1 million in state reimbursements that can be used to sustain staff and programming. In addition, New Castle continues to engage donors and pursue grants. Most importantly, the instructional, data, and implementation systems developed during the grant have been designed for longevity.
New Castle has truly crafted a secondary teaching and learning infrastructure that builds better futures for students.
