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Columbus
Dispatch...
In
Ohio,
dropout law hard to enforce
January 27, 2012
During
Tuesday’s State of the Union address, President Barack Obama urged
states to
require students to stay in school until they graduate or turn 18 — a
law
already in effect in Ohio and 19 other states.
Still, at
least 23,000 Ohio teens dropped out in the 2010-11 school year.
And only a
small number of those kids took advantage of an Ohio provision that
lets them “
officially” leave school if they’re at least 16, have a full-time job
and have
permission from a parent and the distric
Most of
those 23,000 were out of school illegally and could face penalties — if
they
could be tracked down.
Local
educators are trying a variety of ways to keep kids in school: They
have hired
truancy officers to work with teens at risk of dropping out. They have
created
alternative programs to help struggling students earn credits or serve
those
that don’t thrive in a traditional high-school setting. They have
created
charter schools aimed at high-school dropouts.
“We know
there is an economic consequence when a student drops out and doesn’t
get a
high-school diploma,” Reynoldsburg Superintendent Steve Dackin said.
“We’ve got
to do everything we can do to make sure kids stay in school.”
The district
redesigned its high school into career-based academies to help students
think
about their futures and identify their interests.
Reynoldsburg
also runs Everest Academy, a charter school that serves students at
risk of
dropping out.
Getting
students to school who don’t want to be there can be a struggle.
Several school
districts work with courts or agencies to help track down students in
danger of
becoming truant — meaning they’ve missed more than 15 unexcused days —
or those
that have just quit coming.
Mindy
Farry, a school-court liaison for the Educational Service Center of
Central
Ohio, helps local school districts reach out to students with
attendance
problems.
She meets
with families to come up with solutions. Sometimes, she has to find the
students.
“It’s
difficult, especially if they leave and are nowhere to be found,” she
said.
“It’s hard to know where to start looking for them.”
Last year,
she received referrals for 400 students who had at least five unexcused
absences.
Five
percent of those referrals turned out to be truancy cases and were
referred to
the Juvenile Court, where judges can place students on probation,
remove them
from their homes or suspend their driver’s licenses or permits.
School
leaders say that Obama’s desire to keep kids in school until 18 is
noble but
won’t make much difference unless schools find better ways to engage
students
who are likely to drop out.
And those
efforts — online classes or more internships and work opportunities
that are
tied to their studies — can cost money, Columbus City Schools
Superintendent
Gene Harris said.
“I think it
is going to take the entire community — and not just the schools —
working
together to creatively meet students where they are at, with the
programs they
want, to reach the president’s goals,” she said.
Harris also
thinks schools should serve students beyond the age of 18 if they still
are
trying to earn a diploma.
“I don’t
think there is anything magical about the number 18,” she said. “They
might be
20 years old and not have been ready or needed a little extra help to
reach the
standards.”
State
school Superintendent Stan Heffner agreed
“I don’t
know if a traditional setting works for all students, and we don’t want
to
shortchange them for the rest of their lives by not being flexible,” he
said.
Bexley
Superintendent Michael Johnson said he would support Obama’s call as
one more
incentive for students to stay in school.
“I just
think it puts an additional burden on the student to be in school or be
violating the law,” he said.
Farry said
requiring students to stay in school until 18 might be tough to do.
“But it has
to be the goal. You can’t set a bar that’s lower than that.”
Read this
and other articles at the Columbus Dispatch
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