At one California high school where nearly half the teenagers dropped out, teachers started visiting students' homes to show parents that teachers really care about helping their children succeed and that they need the parents' help.

Five years later, that same Sacramento school saw 90 percent of its seniors graduate last week, said Elisa Gonzalez, parent engagement director at Luther Burbank High School. And 98 percent of graduates applied to college.

Teacher house calls make a real difference, Gonzalez said, "because when you go to the home, to the parent, they feel you care."

It helps to build trust and break a "cycle of blame" between schools and parents, said Carrie Rose, executive director of the Parent/Teacher Home Visit Project.

The power of teacher home visits is just one of many ideas being presented this week at the Montana Behavior Institute, which more than 900 educators from all over the state are attending at Montana State University.

Susan Bailey-Anderson, behavior institute state coordinator for the Office of Public Instruction, said the institute attracts teachers, administrators, school mental health and social workers, and police officers who work in the schools.

The behavior institute's goal is to create positive school environments, so that "our kids are successful," Bailey-Anderson said. Workshops focus on topics like bullying and dropout rates.

Teacher home visits are something new, Bailey-Anderson said. At the public instruction office, she added, "We're promoting it."

Eleven states have adopted the teacher home visits, Rose said. In Montana, school districts are trying it in Great Falls, Libby and Poplar on the Fort Peck Reservation.

The nonprofit Parent/Teacher Home Visit Project trains kindergarten through 12th-grade teachers to make home visits, working in teams of two. The goal, Rose said, is to build trust and open lines of communication.

Teachers talk to parents to identify, she said, "their common hopes and dreams and how they can work together. Decades of research show students do better academically if students' families are engaged."

The power of teachers who care was also emphasized in a workshop about the APEX program, based at the University of New Hampshire, for reducing dropout rates.

Jonathon Drake, a national trainer, said one key is showing students why a high school education is relevant to their own dreams and aspirations.

Kelsey Carroll, 20, of Somersworth, N.H., said she graduated, thanks to the APEX program. She said she grew up with a lot of drug and alcohol problems in her family. They ignored the fact that the first two years of high school, "I was failing everything," she said. "I pretty much just gave up."

Her life started to turn around one day when she was called into a meeting where teachers wanted to listen to her talk about her own goals and dreams for her future.

"They made it seem there was actually hope for me graduating, when I thought there wasn't," Carroll said.

They also arranged weekly meetings to talk about what she could do to get closer to her goals.

"They cared — and they weren't going anywhere," she said.

One New Hampshire principal started out skeptical of the APEX program and its emphasis on creating a compassionate school environment but was won over when he saw the results, said JoAnne Malloy, assistant professor and director of the APEX program.

She quoted him as saying, "When students experience consistency, kindness and concern, we have more learning, more satisfaction, less negative behavior and fewer dropouts."

Gail Schontzler can be reached at gails@dailychronicle.com or 582-2633.

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