Former educator spreads 'The Power of ICU' idea

For 33 years, Danny Hill was an educator in Lebanon, Tenn. Now Hill travels across the country preaching "The Power of ICU," a program he developed that holds students accountable for the quality of their work and turning it in.

He and Jayson Nave, part of the ICU team, co-wrote a book called "The Power of ICU." The program has caught on in hundreds of schools across the country. It's strongest in South Dakota, Texas, Alabama, Tennessee, South Carolina, Missouri and New Mexico. Schools in Michigan, Ohio and Kentucky also have tried it.

From 1991 to 2011, Hill was principal of an 850-student elementary school in Lebanon. Before that, he taught eighth- and ninth-grade science and was an assistant principal at Lebanon High School.

"Teachers started to work on apathy in '03-'04. The only problem was we still had students coming in who didn't care about school," Hill said in a telephone interview. "It was like pulling teeth trying to get them engaged. We didn't have infrastructure to follow up and make sure that nobody slipped through the cracks.

"So we slowly started changing some things. Over a one- to three-year period, we started having some dramatic successes. I'd say the catalyst was that we started keeping a list of any assignment the student didn't do, or didn't do ... well; we put it on their list. Then we built the infrastructure to make sure they had whatever help they needed and whatever time they needed" without cutting into class time.

For example, Hill said, when students arrive at school, they might go to the gym or cafeteria and sit for 15 or 30 minutes. This is a time when they could be taken aside to be helped by teachers or even fellow students.

"If you do that type of thing daily, the students get caught up and stay caught up, so it's like building a house," Hill said. "You're going to build your culture differently than some of the ways we've been doing things. ... In a lot of our schools, we're getting 100 percent completion. At my school, the last seven years I was there, every student completed every assignment."

One of the keys is parental notification. Once it's set up, parents are notified by text or email that their student isn't turning in homework.

"We have a lot of things we can do differently that can change the culture that doesn't cost money," Hill said. "It's powerful when children know everyone is pulling for them."

rcampbell@semissourian.com

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Pertinent address:

Lebanon, Tenn.