Published: October 25, 2009 08:53 pm      

Capital Focus: New program targeting W.Va. dropouts wins funding

CHARLESTON (AP) — Kanawha County officials hope a new approach toward keeping would-be dropouts in school will prove a model for the rest of West Virginia and beyond.

Gov. Joe Manchin recently agreed to a $2 million funding request from Delegate Sharon Spencer, D-Kanawha, and others. The money will build four new classrooms at each of Kanawha County’s two career technical centers.

These centers are key to the new approach, which focuses on eighth-, ninth- and 10th-graders identified as potential dropouts. It also seeks to lure those who have already dropped out back to school. Instead of keeping them in the traditional classrooms, the program offers vocational and technical training. Attending the two-year community and technical colleges also becomes a goal.

“It’s not going back to school the same way,” said Mark Milam, a program supporter and the county’s assistant superintendent for secondary, alternative, career and technical education. “It’s a whole new, innovative way.”

Curbing West Virginia’s dropout rate has become a major cause for Spencer, a career educator and longtime lawmaker. Nearly 3,770 West Virginia seventh- through 12th-graders abandoned school — about 3 percent of the total — during the 2007-2008 academic year, the latest available state Department of Education figures.

With the state’s largest school district, Kanawha County led in both the number of dropouts and the percentage of the student population at 4.7 percent. Seven of the other 54 counties showed dropout rates at or above 4 percent. Only two counties, Brooke and Mineral, saw rates below 1 percent.

Spencer sees a link between the lack of in-school programs for at-risk and discipline-prone students and the dropout rate. She cites schools that send suspended students home for lack of an alternative, and the percentage of households with single parents or with both parents working during the day.

“That gives children access to drugs, alcohol, tobacco and crime,” Spencer said. “And if a student is out 10 or more days, they might as well hang up that semester.”

The legislator also questions what becomes of these dropouts. Research she requested from the state Division of Corrections show that it had more than 430 youths under age 16 in its custody last year. Kanawha County accounted for 53 of them. All of these juveniles cost corrections $30.7 million in 2008, with an estimated average cost of $81,285 for each.

Such figures helped Spencer win over county and state education officials and other supporters. House Speaker Rick Thompson, D-Wayne, co-signed a March letter to Manchin seeking his backing.

Spencer previously helped launch a pilot program targeting three Kanawha County high schools with the highest percentages of students removed from class because of disciplinary issues. She also encourages efforts by teachers and school administrators to “adopt” or mentor individual students deemed in danger of dropping out.

The new program focuses on eighth- through 10th-graders — “11th grade is too late,” Spencer said. The approach also recognizes that the lower grades aren’t usually exposed to technical or vocational training.

“It is our firm belief that if our state would allow younger students to explore these career-oriented classes through programs like Career Plus, the dropout rate would noticeably decrease,” the letter to the governor from Spencer and Thompson said.

Career Plus, first offered in 2003, mixes academic and technical courses. It also allows students to recover credits they lost by dropping out or otherwise failing to complete a class. High school students require 25 credits to graduate.

By expanding these and other existing programs into the new classrooms, Milam envisions at-risk students pursuing training that will lead to real job prospects, the better pay of a skilled trade and even a leg up on a two-year degree.

“It is a win-win if we could get these kids back in school,” he said. “They actually can get college credit while they are there, and (the credits are) free. You can’t beat that.”

Spencer expected to tout the new program over the weekend at the 99th annual conference of the International Association for Truancy and Dropout Prevention in New Orleans.