High Schools’ Dropout Rate Declines 20% : Education: Countywide decrease over the past five years is attributed to prevention programs that identify and assist problem students earlier, in the lower grades.

The number of students dropping out of Orange County high schools fell more than 20% over the past five years, state officials said Tuesday, with notable progress in Santa Ana, where its dropout rate was sliced to 28% from a whopping 42%.

Countywide, the 1990 dropout rate was 15.8%, with nearly 3,600 students leaving high school early. That’s about 1,100 less than the number of dropouts five years earlier.

Both county and statewide dropout figures have steadily declined over the past five years, with Orange County consistently showing better dropout figures than the state as a whole. Statewide, the dropout rate has fallen to 20.2% from 25.0% during that period.

County school officials said they are reducing the number of dropouts by tracking students who are at risk of leaving. Instead of starting with high school students, the officials said, dropout prevention programs have been implemented in elementary and junior high schools. And instead of waiting for students to miss several weeks of class before taking action, school officials are now routinely calling parents of students who miss a day or two.

“In the past few years, school districts have been working hard toward improving the chances of at-risk students,” said Georgiann Boyd, coordinator of student services at the County Department of Education. “School officials have been attacking the dropout rates and the numbers show that they are working.”

“There’s a big improvement in Santa Ana,” noted James Fulton of the state Department of Education’s demographics unit. “It’s very difficult for any school district to change and to adapt so that students will not drop out. It takes an exceptional amount of effort on the part of the school district.”

Figures released Tuesday showed that the Santa Ana Unified School District’s dropout rate had decreased to 27.9% in 1990 from 32% the year before. While well above the countywide average, Santa Ana’s declining numbers were considered an impressive improvement for the county’s largest school district, where 62% of the students speak limited or no English.

“We still have a long way to go in keeping our kids in school,” said Rudy M. Castruita, superintendent of the 46,000-student Santa Ana district. “But we have a 33.3% decrease since 1986. That means more kids are staying in school, and more kids know that education is important to their future.”

Other districts showing major decreases since 1986 were Anaheim Union High School District and Capistrano Unified School District in southern Orange County. Dropout rates declined by two-thirds in both districts over the past five years.

Figures for the Anaheim Union High district showed a 67.4% plunge since 1986, from 28.8% of the student population in 1986 to 9.4% in 1990. Capistrano Unified’s dropout rate fell from 17.6% in 1986 to 5.6% last year. The figures from the state reflect data by all schools, including continuation and alternative.

The news wasn’t good for all county districts, however. In the Brea-Olinda Unified district, the dropout rate has steadily increased in the past five years, from 4.2% in 1986 to 6.8% in 1989 to 8.5% last year--a 102% increase over five years.

But Brea-Olinda High School principal John Johnson said the dropout numbers for the district are misleading because a majority of high-risk students end up attending continuation school, where students who have dropped out and wish to re-enter school are assigned. Those students are still counted in the overall dropout rate.

“When they go on to a continuation program, they have more of a chance to make up credit and graduate,” Johnson said. “We find that with more attention, they get back into the ballgame.”

Three other districts--Garden Grove Unified, Laguna Beach Unified and Placentia Unified--also saw five-year increases in the dropout rate, although Laguna Beach’s rate fell from 1989 to 1990. But in Placentia, the dropout rate increased more than threefold over a year, from 3.7% in 1989 to 11.6% in 1990.

As in other school districts where the dropout rate has decreased, Santa Ana school officials said they have initiated programs that solely address the dropout problem, including the “Stay in School” program, started two years ago by Superior Court Judge Jack Mandel.

The program, which started with guest speakers visiting classrooms to tell students about career choices, has expanded to local businesses “adopting” eighth- and 10th-grade classrooms and taking them on field trips to workplaces. The district has also established career fairs at all schools, rather than just high school sites.

In the Anaheim Union High School and Capistrano Unified districts, officials said they have assigned employees whose primary jobs are to track students who miss school. Visits are made to students’ homes and meetings with parents are mandatory.

David Steinle, assistant superintendent at the Anaheim Union High district, said the district has also launched a learning center at the Anaheim Plaza mall to encourage junior high students to seek tutoring and extra help they might not be receiving from home. The center also has classes for parents who want to help their children stay in school.

Alan Hix, a child welfare officer at Capistrano Unified, said students drop out for a variety of reasons, so school districts have to tailor programs to help them.

“The students get involved in drugs, gangs or are in dysfunctional families,” Hix said. “Or they get a job and find that school doesn’t look good for them. No two dropouts are the same, even if they share some of the same problems.”

To help some of their students, Capistrano operates an independent-study program called “Fresh Start” for those who are at high risk of leaving school. Fresh Start has teachers who conduct one-on-one class sessions with their students.

“It’s not a free ride for these kids,” Hix said. “The kids are still considered students in the district and still have to do rigorous studying to graduate. But it’s a program that addresses their needs and helps them stay in school.”

Five-Year Trend in O.C.’s Dropout Rate

1986 1989 1990 1986-90 District % Change Anaheim Union 28.8 11.4 9.4 -67.4 Brea-OLinda Unified 4.2 6.8 8.5 102.4 Capistrano Unified 17.6 6.7 5.6 -68.2 Fullerton Joint Union 19.9 14.9 19.4 -2.5 Garden Grove Unified 11.9 17.0 14.6 -22.7 Huntington Beach Union 20.1 18.7 14.1 29.9 Irvine Unified 8.8 10.4 7.5 -15.9 Laguna Beach Unified 4.1 7.3 6.4 56.1 Los Alamitos Unified 9.5 3.8 4.1 -56.8 Newport-Mesa Unified 19.1 8.3 8.2 -57.1 Orange Unified 21.7 24.8 19.7 -9.2 Placentia Unified 8.0 3.7 11.6 45.0 Saddleback Valley Unified 11.9 8.9 10.2 -14.3 Santa Ana Unified 41.8 32.0 27.9 -33.3 Tustin Unified 17.5 20.4 12.1 -30.9 Total Orange County 19.9 16.2 15.8 -20.6 STATE TOTAL 25.0 21.4 20.2 -19.2

Source: State Department of Education.