Newport-Mesa dropout rate remains low

Danette Goulet

NEWPORT-MESA -- While the number of students who dropped out of

Newport-Mesa schools last year went up by 11, the district continues to

have a lower dropout rate than the county or state.

Of the 2,802 students who dropped out of high school in Orange County

during the 1999-00 school year, only 54 were enrolled in the Newport-Mesa

Unified School District, according to a report released by the California

Department of Education on Wednesday.

“We’re quite happy because we continue to be below county and state

rates,” said Peggy Anatol, director of curriculum and assessment for the

district. “The county is at 2.0% [of students dropping out], the state is

at 2.8%, and we’re 0.9%.”

That number is up from the previous year, when 43 high school students

stopped attending classes in the district, Anatol said. But while the

dropout rate went up by 11 students, the enrollment saw an increase of

308 students.

Students are considered dropouts if they have attended a school for at

least three months and are then gone for 45 days without requesting a

transcript, Anatol said.

“Sometimes [students] go to other districts and don’t send back for

transcripts,” she added. “They take their checkout grades and previous

transcripts and use that.”

While the majority -- 37 of 54 -- of the students who dropped out are

Latino, according to the report, Anatol said she is not sure if language

or culture played any part in the students’ decisions.

“I don’t know if being a second-language learner or the tough

curriculum contributes,” she said. “Maybe some students need to get a

job.”

Compared with Newport-Mesa losing 54 of 6,233 high school students,

Orange Unified School District had 163 of 8,000 drop out. In the

Placentia-Yorba Linda district 26 of 7,498 students dropped out. In Santa

Ana, they have more than double Newport-Mesa’s student body with 12,744,

but had 421 drop out.