High school dropouts increased over last year

Angelique Flores

The dropout rate has increased in the Huntington Beach Union High

School District.The district’s four-year derived rate for 1999-2000

jumped to 8.2% from 1998-1999’s 6%. The one-year tally also rose to 2.1%

from 1.5%. This figure was slightly higher than the county’s average of a

2% one-year rate and 8.0% four-year derived rate.

“Dropouts concern me anyway,” Supt. Susan Roper said. “Having one is

too much.”

Out of its 14,310 students, the district had 298 dropouts last school

year. The district had the second highest number of dropouts in the

county, second to the Santa Ana Unified School District, which had 421 --

a one-year rate of 3.3%.However, Huntington Beach was below the state

averages.

Statewide, the new data does not represent a significant change in

rates compared to last year. The state’s derived four-year dropout rate

for 1999-2000 is 11.1%, the same as last year, and the one-year dropout

rate remains at 2.8%. Because graduation numbers do not account for

students who enter or leave the state, these rates are only an

estimate.”Everyone talks about how accurate this data is,” Roper said.

When a student leaves the district, unless another school requests

that student’s transcript, the district reports that student as a

dropout. But that isn’t always the case.

This past year, after tracking down those students who had left,

district officials found that about one-third of those students had

enrolled in other schools even though their transcripts had not been

requested.

Because of such glitches in calculating the numbers, much of the data

is not reliable and accurate. In addition, because numbers are not

gathered the same way in each district, officials would rather look at

their own trends, Roper said.

Still, all schools in the district showed slight increases.

Coast High School, an alternative school, and Valley Vista High

School, a continuation school, had the highest dropout rates with 19.1%

and 19.4% respectively. District officials expected high figures because

those types of schools generally have more students identified as

at-risk.

Among the regular high schools, Westminster and Ocean View high

schools had the highest dropout rates with 3.5% an 2.7%, respectively.

Edison and Huntington Beach high schools had the lowest rates with

0.5%. Fountain Valley High School was next with 0.8%, and then Marina

High School with 1.5%.

“We will have fluctuation, but we’ve gotten [the rates] down to about

2%, and that’s pretty good,” said Cathy McGough, who directs the

district’s dropout recovery program.

However, some officials still feel the numbers are overestimates.

To keep students in school, the district has a dropout recovery

program that helps these students get back into school. The program

tracks down teens who leave the district, making sure they are aware of

the programs they can return to and encourages them to enroll in them.

The district’s continuation, alternative and adult schools are some

options for these students to receive their diploma or GED.

“There are a lot of references, but we try to make sure kids have good

information and get a good education and not drop out,” Roper said.

She correlates the dropouts to low socioeconomic levels. The higher

amount of students in a low socioeconomic bracket, the higher amount of

dropouts. Such is the case at Ocean View and Westminster.

“The good news is that we haven’t overlooked someone who has dropped

out. We’ve reported everyone and tried to get each one back in school,”

McGough said.