leadership in high schools

Thanks to Michelle Boutwell, SETRC trainer at Erie 2 CC BOCES who compiled the piece below. 

State Performance Plan Indicator #2 addresses the drop out rate for students with disabilities.  At the end of the first phase of our SPP, the expectation is that no more than 19.9% of SWDs will drop out (the bar will only get higher).  When a district is targeted as being at risk or in need of intervention for SPP #1(graduation) and SPP#2, we focus our attention at all three levels of students’ school careers.  We look for early warning signs at the elementary and middle school levels and target groups of students at the high school level who fall into the “at risk” category and see if we can keep them from jumping ship.

Here are some signs that you can look for in building risk profiles for your students: (2 or more research studies have supported these findings)

Elementary
• Low achievement (use universal screening data)
• Retention (student is older than his peers)
• Poor attendance
• Low socioeconomic status  

Middle School

• High-risk peer group
• High-risk behavior
• Low achievement
• Retention (older than his peers)
• Poor attendance
• Low educational expectations from school personnel
• Low socioeconomic status
• High family mobility
• Low family expectations
• Low family contact with the school
• Low number of family centered conversations about school

High School

• High number of work hours
• Parenthood
• Low achievement
• Retention (older than his peers)  1 grade of retention increases the risk by 40%; 2 grades of retention increases the risk by 90%
• Attendance  (Does your attendance policy contribute to low attendance?)
• Low educational expectations from the school
• Low commitment to school
• No extracurricular activity participation
• Misbehavior
• Low socioeconomic status
• Low education of parents
• Not living with both parents
• The top 5 reasons that students from ages 16-25 give for dropping out: (Rotermund, California Dropout Research Project, Statistical Brief #2, May 2007)
        1. Classes not interesting  47%
        2. Missed too many days of school  43%
        3. Friends are not interested in school  42%
        4. Excess freedom/too few life rules  38%
        5. Failing school  35%

Once we identify the students who are at high risk of dropping out of school, our collective challenge is trying to prevent it.  Between October 2005 and October 2006 enough students dropped out of US schools to fill 9, 690 school buses!  Think about what that does to our country’s economic and health care challenges.

Check out the National Dropout Prevention Center Network at Clemson University for more information.

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