The RootsandGoals.org Pk3-12 Homework Project

The RootsandGoals.org Pk3-12 Homework Project is a student motivation project started in 2005 by Quintanilla Middle School teachers to overcome student apathy with hopefully student behavior improving in the process. It was originally called the School Time-Capsule Project. It then spread to high schools and included family letters with family history stories and family dreams for students. It became the StudentMotivation.org Project serving all grades by 2016.

To better focus on the methods used it is now the RootsandGoals.org Pk3-12 Homework Project. The name changes reflect the constant improvement of student achievement and graduation rates since the 2005 beginning of this project. 

Academic improvement has now accelerated ten-fold since 2005! The improvements that took 10 years before 2016 now happen within one, or two years at the most, due to annual letters, constant feedback, and the only 10-year time-capsule experience happening after high school graduation!  The History section in the Menu reflects Project History in more detail. 

The RootsandGoals.org Homework Project has always been a free-to-use, open-source project, improving student achievement.  Our only request is that if any improvement to this student motivation system is discovered, please let us know so all students in all schools can benefit. 

Graduate education or human behavior students are encouraged to use this project for any of the multitude of thesis items that could be researched within the RootsandGoals.org Homework Project framework involving students from the age of 3 through 18. This school year, as I write this today, 2/26/26, there is still time to find a school who wants to connect their students with their life goals and family history and see a very significant improvement in behavior by the end of school the first week of June 2026! Just find a principal who understands student motivation and do it at any school anywhere.

The letter writing upon which the RootsandGoals.org Project rests was stopped in 2020 due to the Covid Pandemic and not restarted in any school until 2023/24. 

In the 2023/24 school year a new all-grade StudentMotivation.org Project restarted at South Oak Cliff High School (SOC) building from the widom learned since 2005. SOC is one of the 37 high schools in Dallas ISD. Within 2 years SOC went from the 4th lowest annual high school School Effectiveness Indices (SEI) average score for the previoous 7 years (44.2) in 2023, to earning a 2025 SEI score of 64.8! No other high school in Dallas isd History has ever raised their SEI score by so much in 2 years!  In 2025, SOC had the highest SEI score of all 37 DISD high schools, even higher than all Magnet and Choice high schools!

With students awareness of their own roots and goals driving the Project, the name was finally changed to the RootsandGoals.org Pk3-12 Homework Project.  The StudentMotivation.org and RootsandGoals.org URL’s point to the same website.

Since the SEI is used to track Project progress, the Definition of School Effectiveness Indices (SEI) scores, and 30+ years of SEI data for 230+ DISD schools, can be found at https://mydata.dallasisd.org/SL/SD/SEI/Default.jsp.

Now a Roots & Goals Letter from each parent, grandparent, and/or other close adult, is requested to be sent to every student every year, from age 3 through 18. It is a letter about the writer’s goals for the student who is their child, grandchild, niece or nephew, or any student they are close to. Each letter also includes a story from the writer’s life they want to share, a part of their family history, and the student’s roots. 

The writing of these letters is described in the first 3 bi-lingual handouts found in the Handout link from the menu. These handouts are used during three different time periods of the 15 years from Pk3 through graduation.  Students give the correct Family Letter Direction Form each year to each parent, grandparent, or other close adult, who they are asking for a Roots & Goals Letter:

Handout #1 (Family Letter Directions for Students age 3 to 7) is used from Pk3 through 2nd grade. All writing is done by each parent, grandparent, and other close relatives or adults. When their letter is finished they sit down with their student and read their letter to them. They encourage questions from the student to be certain their letter is understood. 

Handout #2 (Family Letter Directions for Students age 8 to 18) is used from 3rd grade to 12th grade.  It adds each student also writing a letter to themselves each year about each letter they received. Each student also updates their own life goals in this letter for their own future. As years pass the writing and details will mature as the student matures. Otherwise the process in Handout #1 is followed.

Handout #3 is the “Final Family Letter Directions for a Graduating Senior focused 10 Years into the future.”  The First Senior Year Roots & Goals Envelope follows the model in Handout #2, but senior year this Roots & Goals Envelope is returned to the student by April. Due to this year’s late Project start (i.e. envelopes not finished before Thanksgiving) the Final Senior Class for 2026 Roots & Goals Envelope should be put together now. No need to wait for April. All letters in the Roots & Goals Envelopes for the Class of 2026 will be focused on their 2036 goals.

Like all Final Senior Year Roots & Goals Envelopes, these will be initially stored, like all Envelopes, in the Roots & Goals Envelope Box in the classroom where each student says their Pledge of Allegiance.  But the last month of Senior Year a time will be scheduled for each senior to move their Final Senior Year Roots & Goals Envelope from that box and place it into the Class of 2026 Container for final Senior Roots & Goals Envelopes. This container will be stored in the school’s time-capsule vault for 10 years, until the Class of 2026 Ten Year Reunion in 2036. 

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At their daily Homeroom Pledge of Allegiance students see their Roots & Goals Envelope Box near the flag. They are reminded of the letters in their sealed self-addressed Roots & Goals Envelope inside the Box.  They may think of what grandma wrote. If they forget what grandma wrote, they can always read her original letter at home.

The Roots & Goals Envelope at school (except for the Final Senior Roots & Goals Envelope) always permanently goes home with the student at the end of the school year to be reread and treasured. Students prepare for the new letters they will ask for and write the next school year for their new set of Roots & Goals Letters.

Remember to place the current date above the students name on their Roots & Goals Envelope each year. It is possible today’s Pk-3 student will have 16 such envelopes, all with different dates, by the time they count the final 10-year planning forward Roots & Goals Envelope that goes into their high school vault for 10 years! They receive it back at their class 10-year reunion, but must have an ID to get it back. Imagine the grasp on life, goals, and family history these graduating students will have compared to current students!  Imagine the potential student achievement!

(The above photo is one of the five 10-year Reunions of Quintanilla former 8th grade students from 2005-2009. The reunions happened from 2015 through 2019, just before the Covid Pandemic shut down all letter writing in all schools in 2020. When letter writing stopped the high SEI scores dropped back to where they had been before students has started writing letters.  The lack of a focus on the future makes a big difference! These reunions were great events everyone loved, but hardly a third of the former students returned to the reunions. Starting a 10-year reunion tradition for 8th graders is very difficult. Therefore it is no longer recommended due to the heavy effort demanded to put one on, the low attendence, and the apparent increased benefit of students getting their letters back within the year and not waiting 10 years.)

Benefits of the RootsandGoals.org Homework Project:

Schools experience a lowering of dropout rates with rising grades and achievement with this Project. Fewer behavioral issues hinder such progress.  Student self-confidence grows.  With students in all grades receiving annual letters from each parent, grandparent, or other close relative, average student attendance and achievement will soar in every grade!

High schools save the final envelopes from each senior class to be stored for the class 10-year reunions. A centrally located vault in a high traffic area of each high school should be used for this vault. Such a vault, combined with a Roots & Goals Envelope Box near every homeroom flag, symbolize the ultimate high value of family roots and life goals! We all benefit as more of our students both master their Family Roots and focus their studies on their own, constantly updated, Life Goals.

It is recommended that only high schools now have Time-Capsule Vaults to hold each graduates Roots & Goals Envelope for 10 years until their 10-year Class Reunion.

The record setting improvement reflected in the green area above was possible due to the excellent SOC staff under the brilliant leadereship of Dr. Willie Johnson since 2017. The green area designates South Oak Cliff High School (SOC) using parts of the RootsandGoals.org Project 2023 through 2025 to build on this essential foundation already in place at SOC!  In 2023/24 SOC was the first DISD high school to have all students in all grades write letters to themselves about their plans for their future. The 9.5 SEI point one year gain in 2024 was beaten again by SOC the following year when about half the students requested letters from each parent, grandparent, or other relative. The 2025 SEI score rose even more than in the 2024 score and was 63.8, the highest 2025 SEI score among all DISD secondary schools, including 37 high schools, even the magnets and choice schools! 

In two school years, 2024 & 2025, SOC raised their SEI score a total of 19.3 SEI Points!  This is a phenomenal 2-year record unmatched by any DISD school over the past 30 years of SEI score gains. To better understand the School Effectiveness Indices, and explore the 30+ year history of SEI scores by DISD school, go to https://mydata.dallasisd.org/SL/SD/SEI/Default.jsp. Again, this progress was only possible due to the solid SOC foundation already in place in 2023!

Hopefully, early in 2026, before May 2026, many more schools at all levels will start their own RootsandGoals.org Pk3-12 Homework Projects. Their 2026 SEI scores will rise hopefully all over 5 points.  Then the next year they may experience SEI gains as great as those SOC earned in 2024, and again in 2025 of over 9 points!

Schools must be patient with students and/or family members who are initially hesitant to write the requested letters. As the value of the Project becomes better known, voluntary participation increases.  The RootsandGoals.org Pk3-12 Homework Project must remain voluntary. Counseling staff should always be advised when letters are being written. Alternative writing projects should always be available for students who do not want to participate.   

Go to the RootsandGoals.org Homework Project Menu to see an Overview of the Project and it’s History, the Handouts needed to run the Project, and the Data that helps verify the Project achievements.  

2-26-2026 Bill Betzen
bbetzen@aol.com
(Emailed questions are welcome. Always put Roots & Goals in Subject line)