The StudentMotivation.org Project dramatically improves any school's academic achievement within one year just by taking the step of all students in all grades writing letters to themselves about their life goals for themselves. Students must know their letters will be stored for one year and returned next year for new letters to be written with updated goals. Opening this productive window to their own future changes students. That is why this Project has seen constant improvement of student achievement since 2005 when the first such letters were written.
Sadly the original letters students began to write to themselves were only written by 8th graders in 2005. By 2011 high school seniors had joined them. Graduation rates constantly improved and student achievement went up, but the improvement was too slow as we have learned since. It took 10 years for Quintanilla Middle School to become the one middle school of the 32 middle schools in Dallas ISD with the highest School Effectiveness Indices (SEI) Scores. Such improvement can now be done in one year!
In 2016 Niki Lincoln (now Niki Lincoln Goff), the Language Arts Coach at Quintanilla, suggested having every child in every grade write letters to themselves about life goals.
A second recommendation by Ms Lincoln at the same time involved the 5 year old frustration of not being able to get more than 30% of parents to write a letter to their child about their goals for the child with a story from family history included in the letter. Our principal had been making an annual written request to the parents of 8th graders for such a letter to be written to their child. Ms. Lincoln made one brilliantly simple change. She recommended the principal stop such letters and that the students themselves write their own request letter to each of their own parents asking for such a letter and explaining why. The results were wonderful! 80% of students suddenly received such letters! Teachers were in tears with joy!
However, by 2016 Quintanilla was already one of the 5 highest SEI scoring middle schools out of the 32 middle schools in Dallas ISD. The academic benefit was not noticed.
But in 2016-17, a 5th year failing middle school was transformed into the highest performing middle school in Dallas ISD in just one year with these same improvements and expansions of what was then still called the School Time Capsule Project. We saw how rapidly academic improvements can happen with all students in all grades writing to each parent, grandparent, and other close relative asking for a letter about dreams for them and another story from their family history! That, combined with every student then writing a letter to themselves about each letter they received, and their own goals for their own future, changed the students! With more details on their family history, and the goals for them in the family, they became different students!
The expanded all-grade, all student StudentMotivation.org Project was tried at Browne Middle School, a 5th year failing school! Browne was already getting the extra resources all such 5th year failing schools, in danger of being closed by the state, receive in Dallas ISD. The StudentMotivation.org Project had not been planned for by DISD Central Office in their attempt to keep Browne from failing and being forcefully closed by Texas. That oversight allowed Browne to wonderfully OVERperform, exceeding all expectations, and setting a District wide middle school SEI score record that still stands today!
In 2016-17 Browne became the HIGHEST achieving middle school in all of Dallas ISD in just one year! Browne went from being a 5th year failing school to being the best middle school in DISD! Browne earned a 61.7 SEI score, a 14.2 point improvement in one year! TO THIS DAY IN 2024 THE BROWNE 61.7 SEI SCORE FOR 2017 REMAINS THE HIGHEST MIDDLE SCHOOL SEI SCORE SINCE 2008 IN DISD! (See second chart below with 2006-2023 SEI scores for 32 middle schools.)
This Project History from 2005 to January of 2025 helps anyone understand within 10 minutes why the Project works. It shows the increasingly rapid improvements in student achievement from the Project, especially since 2016. Project development lost 4 years due to the Covid-19 Pandemic, but the Pandemic helped document the power of the Project as the SEI scores dropped when letters were not being written. That is documented below.
This Pk-12, volunteer-driven, open-source, free-to-use, StudentMotivation.org Project can make any school better than the majority of current schools within just one year! Within Dallas ISD, as schools that begin full Project implimentation gather at the top of the SEI score listings, those schools not using the Project will be left behind, inside the group having the generally lower SEI scores.
The StudentMotivation.org Project started in 2005 as the Quintanilla School Time-Capsule Project. It started with 8th graders in this under performing, high poverty middle school, writing letters to themselves about their goals for 10-years into their future. They placed their letters into a large "Time-Capsule Vault" in the school lobby, on a shelf for their class. Their letters stayed there until their 10-year 8th grade class reunion.All the letters written 2005 through 2015 were 10-year into the future letters, not read again for 10-years. Slowly a goal-focused mentality expanded throughout the school. Within 10 years Quintanilla was the highest performing of the 32 middle schools in DISD based on their achieving the highest School Effectiveness Indices (SEI) score.
Before the Covid-19 Pandemic shut down of the Project in 2020, Quintanilla was able to have five 8th-grade Class 10-year Reunions, from 2015 through 2019. They were wonderful events!
The two Project goals were always to increase student academic achievement and to increase high school graduation rates. Both goals started to improve, but the improvements, unknown to us, were slow. (Prior to 2017 we did not understand how slow!) We still celebrated the improvements that were being documented at that time, not realizing until 2017 that much more rapid improvements were possible.
In 2010 Sunset High School Principal Tony Tovar noticed that Quintanilla students were consistently achieving better than students from Greiner, the other middle school. He investigated, discovered the Time Capsule Project, and immediately had a Sunset Time Capsule Vault installed in the old 1920's circular large phone booth on the first floor at Sunset. Greiner Middle School also heard what Quintanilla was doing and started their own Time Capsule Project as well.
Sunset Seniors & Greiner 8th graders began the annual letter writing tradition planning their 10-year goals in writing. The extra improvement at both schools began to happen, but still only slowly compared to what we now know is possible.
We now know that with only 8th graders, & then 12th graders, writing letters, the intense benefit of focusing on roots and goals was not fully benefitting either school's full enrollment of students in all grades.
Then in 2020 all letter writing in all schools stopped due to the Covid Pandemic. SEI scores began to drop in all Project schools.
In 2021 only one school, Rosemont Upper School, resumed the 8th grade only Project model. Their School Effectiveness Indices (SEI) score continued the slow rise until they had one of the highest SEI scores of any middle school by 2023! (Only 8th grade Rosemont students were writing letters, and only to themselves. I did not know this was happening until I saw the letters produced when examining the Rosemont Time Capsule Vault in 2024, a very pleasant surprise! Then I studied SEI scores and saw the constantly higher SEI scores that had been achieved by Rosemont during 2021-2023! - Bill)
Meanwhile, Quintanilla never resumed full letter writing after the Pandemic started in 2020. This original StudentMotivation.org Project middle school. After 10 years Quintanilla had the highest SEI by 2015. After that achievement, Quintanilla continued to have either the highest or second highest SEI scores through 2019. When the Pandemic stopped the Project letter writing Quintanilla dropped 16 points within 5 years to one of the lowest SEI scores of any of the 32 middle schools by 2024, only 42.6! Only 2 other middle schools had a lower 2024 SEI score! By May of 2025 the Quintanilla Principal was replaced. (I do not know any details other than the exceptional drop in the Quintanilla SEI - Bill). That is the result of the Pandemic stopping of all goal and family roots focused letter writing for 5 years.
The loss of a such student focus on goals and family history focus with parents lowers student achievement!
(See all the SEI data for 32 DISD middle schools, from 2006 to 2023, in the second spreadsheet below. The data can be verified in the Dallas ISD Data Portal at https://mydata.dallasisd.org/SL/SD/SEI/Default.jsp)
The Time Capsule Project was changing as elementary schools were added. Quickly 90% of all letters being written were being returned to students and their families within 10 months for the annual letter writing. A new Project model was being born. Student motivation for all students in all grades was the true focus! This new project model was partially tried for the first time in a high school in 2023-24, at South Oak Cliff High School, aka SOC.
SOC had a 2015-2023 SEI average that was the 4th lowest of all 22 comprehensive high schools in Dallas ISD. But in 2024, after using only part of the StudentMotivation.org Project, the SOC SEI score was the 3rd HIGHEST of all 22 schools! The majority of all SOC students in all grades had written letters to themselves planning their futures. The 2015-2023 SEI average score for SOC rose 9.86 SEI points to 54.0 in 2024! Only 2 of 22 comprehensive high schools had higher scores. But both of those were just barely above SOC, within just half an SEI point above SOC!
If all students had also written to each parent, grandparent, and favorite relative, asking for a letter back about their dreams for the student, and telling a family history story, the changes would have accelerated dramatically more! This will happen especially if all letter writers meet with their student to read and discuss the letter together. If this had happened in 2024, SOC would have had an SEI far above all other DISD high schools for 2024!
Again, to achieve maximum benefit such improvements require students be able to read the letters from their family immediately. Then they have the meeting, in person, or by phone, or by Zoom, to discuss the letter with the writer of the letter to better understand it.
Hopefully SOC is in the process of achieving such dramatically improved progress this year for their 2025 SEI score. Such valuable family letters are being added by SOC for all students in 2024-25.
(The first spreadsheet below is the 2015-2024 history of SEI scores for all 22 Dallas ISD comprehensive high schools. The second spreadsheet is for the 32 middle school's SEI history from 2006 through 2023.)
The third document below is a Letter Request Form developed at the end of 2024 to facilitate the students asking for a letter from each parent, grandparent, or other close relative. It was recommended 5 copies of this form, in Spanish or English as needed, be sent home (next year before the Thanksgiving Break) with each student with a cover letter for parents explaining the value of the StudentMotivation.org Project. It asks their help for their student to help them identify grandparents and other relatives they want to request a letter from. They guide the completing of the form, in Spanish or English as needed, to distribute to the people identified. This is in addition to each parent receiving one of the forms to write their own letters. This also starts the StudentMotivation.org Project in a school
It took 20 years for the new name for the Time Capsule Project, now the StudentMotivation.org Project, to be born. The Project has been proven to be overwhelmingly effective!
