Community to tackle dropouts

Meetings geared toward keeping children in school

By Shawn Cetrone - The Herald

Rock Hill city and school officials hope a planned community-wide gathering will entice others to partner in stemming the flow of students who quit school.

"Dropout Prevention Summit," scheduled for Thursday, boasts a list of 275 invitees.

It includes parents, educators and leaders from area nonprofits, businesses, churches and community groups.

The intent, said Rock Hill schools associate superintendent of planning Luanne Kokolis, is to get everyone brainstorming ways they can pitch in.

"Dropouts are not a school district issue," said Keith Wilks, executive director of student services for Rock Hill schools. "Dropouts are a community issue."

The local meeting is timed to coincide with the state's own first-ever dropout summit. The Tuesday event in Columbia marks the launch of the statewide initiative "Graduation Matters," sponsored by the America's Promise Alliance, a child advocacy group started by former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell.

The South Carolina meeting is part of the Alliance's push to support 100 summits in all 50 states by 2010. It's a campaign to raise awareness, launch a discussion and fashion community-wide plans to keep kids in school.

In a recent report, the Alliance found that roughly a third of American high school students, or about 1.1 million people, quit school before graduating.

In South Carolina, Superintendent of Education Jim Rex estimates the number to be about 8,100 students.

In the 2006-07 school year, Rock Hill schools lost 276 students, or 5.5 percent, according to district figures.

One obstacle educators hope to tackle is a web of data for graduates and dropouts that often marks a point of contention.

Last month, for instance, the state delayed releasing federal test results for high school students after several districts complained about inaccurate graduation rates.

Rock Hill school officials said they plan to discuss some of the programs they have launched in the past two years to retain students.

One example, Kokolis said, is home visitation.

In June, district staffers found and visited about 70 students who had left school. After a series of interviews and discussions, 17 of them agreed to re-enroll.

At the summits, participants will explore reasons that students leave school.

Rock Hill's meeting will feature filmed interviews with students who have dropped out.

One student, in a video, explains that after missing so many days, he felt he couldn't make up the work. It was "a feeling of hopelessness," he says.

Another student, a teenage mom, says she started skipping school to take care of her daughter. "I didn't have anybody to watch my child," she says.

Those are topics summit attendees need to consider, Wilks said.

"If those are the issues causing students to drop out," he said, "What can we as a community do to help those families keep teenagers in school?"