Nashville, TN – Carver High School in Birmingham, Alabama, is the winner of a 2024 Gene Bottoms Pacesetter School Award from the Southern Regional Education Board.

Carver was honored July 9 at SREB’s Making Schools Work Conference in Nashville.

Pacesetter Awards recognize schools that are implementing one of SREB’s Making Schools Work school improvement frameworks and are achieving success in meeting bold goals related to graduation rates, readiness for college and careers, and credential attainment.

Carver implements SREB’s school improvement design for high schools. The school received the honor for focusing on improving student attendance as a crucial step toward continuous improvement.

Using attendance records, demographic information and academic performance data to identify patterns and areas for improvement, Carver administrators tailored the school’s intervention programs to better support students and increase attendance.

Carver’s absenteeism went from 50.4% in 2021-22, to 11.4% in 2022-23. The school achieved this through:

• biweekly attendance meetings
• incentives for attendance
• a new interventionist position
• a focus on extracurricular activities and getting involved
• accurate attendance record keeping

SREB’s Making Schools Work Conference is held annually and provides educators with opportunities to participate in professional development, network with colleagues from across the country and build school and district leadership capacity.

Contact: Janita Poe, SREB News Manager, at Janita.Poe@sreb.org or 404-879-5516, ext. 216

The Southern Regional Education Board works with states, districts and schools to improve education at every level, from early childhood through doctoral education and the workforce. An interstate compact and a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization based in Atlanta, SREB was created in 1948 by Southern governors and legislatures to advance education and improve the social and economic life of the region.