Credit Recovery Best Practices for High-Mobility School Districts
When traditional summer school wasn’t providing enough flexibility, Thornton Township District 205 leveraged Courseware to build a robust year-round credit recovery model that’s dismantling barriers and giving every student a path to graduation.
In south suburban Chicago, Thornton Township High School District 205 serves a diverse student population across multiple high schools. Some students face significant economic challenges, including housing instability that qualifies them for federal protections supporting students without a fixed nighttime residence. The district also serves a growing multilingual population, students with significant special education needs, and young people balancing academic demands with responsibilities outside of school.
Student mobility presents an additional challenge. A portion of the student body transfers in or out during the school year, creating disruption to continuity of instruction.
Despite these realities, most students ultimately earn their diplomas, due in part to an innovative, year-round credit recovery program grounded in a simple premise: students fail courses for very different reasons, and credit recovery only works when it accounts for those differences.
“We had to build something that actually fits our kids’ lives,” explained Patricia Fortier, the district’s Credit Recovery and Outlook Academy Program Administrator.
Expand Credit Recovery Beyond a Summer-Only Model
When district leaders first began revisiting credit recovery, the structure closely mirrored traditional models: a short summer session with students working at the same pace on the same material. During the school year, after-school programs operated separately in each building, again relying on uniform instruction.
Operating in-person programs across multiple campuses required extensive staffing, transportation, food services, security, and health supports. It quickly became clear that the district needed a fundamentally different approach—one that was:
- Year-round rather than seasonal
- Districtwide rather than site-based
- Flexible rather than tied to a single in-person schedule
That realization opened the door to a new credit recovery structure.
Make Flexibility a Credit Recovery Design Principle
“We had to stop forcing students into a schedule that didn’t work for them,” Fortier said. “We needed to build a program that had flexibility.”
The district’s credit recovery program now runs throughout the school year and into the summer. Teachers work with students in live online sessions after school, offering real-time help while also allowing for independent work in Edmentum Courseware. The program accommodates individual situations, including employment, caregiving responsibilities, and extracurricular commitments, while allowing students time to return home before logging in.
This flexibility is critical to making credit recovery realistic and accessible for students whose lives do not fit into rigid schedules.
Identify Why Students Are Failing—Not Just What They Failed
In earlier iterations, students often repeated entire courses regardless of why they failed in the first place. District leaders recognized that this approach ignored the underlying causes.
“Just because a student failed doesn’t mean they didn’t understand the material,” Fortier explained. Some students miss class due to illness or family circumstances. Others are working, caring for siblings, or adjusting to a new school environment. Some struggle with isolated concepts rather than an entire course.
By shifting the focus from the failing grade itself to the reasons behind it, the district was able to design a credit recovery model grounded in students’ real experiences. This clarity guided decisions around structure, staffing, and curriculum and prevented the program from treating very different problems as if they were the same.
Use Diagnostic Data to Customize Coursework
At the center of District 205’s model is a diagnostic approach that determines what each student actually needs to recover. The district combines platform-based preassessments with department-created assessments aligned to local curriculum.
Curriculum teams identify which units correspond to district expectations for each course. Teachers then review assessment results to determine what students have already mastered and assign only the content tied to their learning gaps. As a result, students who failed the same course may complete entirely different sets of lessons based on their individual needs.
“We pre-assess them using the platform, and we also use our departmental assessments,” Fortier said.
Differentiate Credit Recovery Pathways to Support Diverse Needs
Customization extends beyond coursework. District 205 created distinct entry points and supports for a wide range of students, including general education students, English learners, students with Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) or accommodation plans, homebound learners, and students new to online instruction.
For students with IEPs, the district draws on a broad range of available courseware, including earlier instructional content, to rebuild foundational skills before addressing the high school-level course they did not pass. This allows students to strengthen essential concepts without being overwhelmed by material they are not yet prepared to master.‑school‑level course they did not pass. This allows students to strengthen essential concepts without being overwhelmed by material they are not yet prepared to master.
Build Early Credit Recovery Interventions for English Learners
As the district’s English Learner population grew, leaders realized that many students were not identified for credit recovery until they were nearing graduation. By proactively monitoring progress and creating intentional early pathways, the district significantly improved outcomes.
Students who began the year off track were increasingly able to recover credits during the school year, reducing the need for last-minute interventions. The shift underscored the importance of early identification and of structured supports tailored to language acquisition needs.
Combat Cheating with Performance Tasks that Confirm Mastery
Concerns about academic integrity are common in online credit recovery. Fortier acknowledges these concerns but emphasizes that shortcuts are ineffective in the district’s system.
All credit recovery students must complete departmental assessments and repeat key performance tasks from the original course. Oral presentations, projects, live physical activities, and other demonstrations of learning are required, with online coursework serving as support rather than replacement.
“If they complete the online work but can’t demonstrate mastery, they don’t finish credit recovery,” Fortier explained.
Streamline Credit Recovery to Make It Cost-Effective
Moving to a centralized, virtual model significantly changed how the district allocates resources. Rather than staffing programs separately at each school, a smaller group of teachers serves students districtwide in one virtual space. This approach reduces the need for duplicate staffing, transportation, and facilities while ensuring more consistent expectations.
Fortier regularly monitors online classrooms to confirm teacher presence, student engagement, and adherence to standards. From the district’s perspective, the operational efficiency has been substantial.
Design Clear, Fair Grading Policies for Transcript Integrity
District 205 draws a clear distinction between retaking a failed course and taking an online course for the first time. The goal is to restore learning without inflating transcripts or creating confusion about academic expectations.
Students who recover credit after failing a course have limits on the grades they can earn, while students taking an online course for the first time are graded under standard criteria. This transparency builds trust with students, families, and staff and reinforces that credit recovery is about mastery, not erasing consequences.
Treat Credit Recovery as a Continuous Improvement Process
Perhaps the most important element of District 205’s approach is its commitment to ongoing refinement. “We rebuild pieces of it every year,” Fortier said.
Each year, the district reviews course failure patterns, credit recovery demands, subgroup trends, and opportunities for earlier intervention, including at the middle school level. Leaders recognize that a high mobility district is constantly changing, and the credit recovery program must evolve alongside it.
Districts reimagining credit recovery can draw several key lessons from District 205’s experience:
- Look beyond the failing grade to understand why students lost credit.
- Remove structural barriers that make participation unrealistic.
- Use diagnostics to target only the learning that needs to be recovered.
- Create intentional pathways for different student groups.
- Make mastery, not seat time or online progress, the non-negotiable outcome.
- Centralize operations to increase consistency and efficiency.
- Establish grading policies that are clear, fair, and defensible.
- Commit to annual review and adjustment.