ATTLEBORO - About half as many freshmen were held back at Attleboro High School last year, and educators are studying whether an "embedded" system of help for special needs students might be the key.

Principal Jeffrey Newman said about 30 ninth-graders were retained last year, or about 7 percent of the class. Previously, retentions had been closer to 50 or 60 students per year, Newman said.

Administrators think the difference last year is that the school started a system of assigning special needs teachers to work directly with department heads and classroom teachers in the specifically in the subjects of mathematics, science, English and social studies.

The idea was to help students with individual educational plans learn better.

Newman said he suspects the program helped reduce failures of both special needs and non special needs students. He said teachers now are evaluating the results of the program to see how significantly it contributed to last year's success rate.

"We're still looking at the data," Newman said.

Besides helping students with learning disabilities, the principal said the program might have had a "spillover effect" for students not on learning plans.

"When those teachers were in the classroom, other kids also received benefits," he said.

Newman said the high school's successful credit recovery program, which allows students to make up credits from courses they failed, is also helping students across all grade levels achieve more.

Last year, he said, 99 percent of all Attleboro High seniors received diplomas, the highest percentage yet.