Schools implementing plan to lower dropouts

• By KORAN ADDO
• Westside bureau
• Published: Jul 19, 2009

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MORGANZA — Nearly one in five Louisiana public school students will never put on a cap and gown, walk across a stage and receive a high school diploma, state Department of Education records show.

That trend has stayed steady over the past several years, the records show.

Advance Baton Rouge, a nonprofit now running five schools in the Baton Rouge area, is trying to change that with its Dropout Prevention Program starting in the fall at Pointe Coupee Central High School, said program leader Michael Eskridge, the former principal of Glen Oaks Middle School in Baton Rouge.

During the first 20 days of the 2009-10 school year, school administrators will be evaluating student attendance, class performance and disciplinary records, looking for students who are at a “high risk” for dropping out, Eskridge said.

That process is part of the nonprofit’s “early warning system,” he said.

Additionally, every two weeks during the school year,  Eskridge will be getting reports from teachers who will be using the same high-risk indicators to evaluate which students are veering off track, he said.

Those students will be referred to the school’s “Dropout Prevention Team,” which has social workers who will meet with students and their parents to come up with plans to address whatever barriers the students are having trouble overcoming, he said.

If a student is having trouble with transportation and getting to school every day, it’s possible, he said, that the school would arrange transportation for that student.

The unique aspect of the plan, Eskridge said, is that he and his team would be applying the same system for all grade levels — elementary through high school.

Similar programs nationwide focus on older students, he said. Those programs overlook warning signs such as poor grade-point averages and frequent absenteeism among younger students which often continue as students move from grade to grade.

The dropout program will also focus on helping students in transition — those who are moving from elementary school to middle school and from middle school to high school, he said.

Those students will visit with and be assigned a mentor at the school they will attend the next year, he said.

They will have to come up with written plans outlining their academic and social goals and the steps they need to take to reach those goals, he said.