Scott Cartland, Wheatley Education Campus

Principal Cartland at Wheatley Education Campus in Washington, D.C. had a plan to improve the school’s negative, unsafe culture, but he and his faculty struggled to address the sheer number of students who needed support. Two and a half years into his tenure, he invited Turnaround into the school. Turnaround introduced a local mental health provider to partner with Wheatley’s Student Support team.

Expedient referrals, coupled with classroom strategies and a parental engagement initiative, enabled Wheatley’s school improvement efforts to gain traction. The results: dramatic gains in student behavior (incidents down over 60%, suspensions and chronic absenteeism down 20%) and academic achievement (math/reading proficiency up 10-20%). “My only wish is that we would have started working with Turnaround in year one or two,” said Cartland, “we would have gotten a lot further a lot faster”.