Closing the Books: Why Students Drop Out
By Sean Corcoran
Listen to this story.
For the communities of Cape Cod and suburban Boston, young people dropping out of high school is a serious issue. The statistics are lower than in the city, to be sure, but on Cape Cod alone for the Class of 2008, dropout rates ranged from zero in Provincetown to seventeen percent in Mashpee -- with the highest numbers found in the districts with the most needy children. As part of WGBH's ongoing, in- depth look at the dropout issue, our reporter Sean Corcoran talks to young people about why dropping out became an option, and he looks at some efforts to keep students in school.
People have ideas and assumptions about high school dropouts and so-called 'at-risk youth' in general. 17-year-old Allison Vilad of Marston Mills on Cape Cod knows this, she says, because she's one of the students that carries that somewhat distasteful label.
"People think, oh, at-risk students. They just don't want to be in school. They are just tired of school. They don't care. But there are certain circumstances that people don't see behind the scenes. They don't live our life. They don't know what we go through to make us be classified as an at-risk student. They just think we are just kids that do drugs and alcohol. That is their perception of at-risk students."
Vilad is part of the Graduate to Success program at Cape Cod's regional vocational and technical school in Harwich. Programs like this one -- and there are only a handful on Cape Cod -- provide a variety of supports for students who are facing the frightening decision of dropping out. And in Vilad's case, it wasn't drugs, alcohol or financial issues that threatened graduation. It was something much more basic -- life.
"I just gave birth to twin boys back in October. So, I know it's a struggle for a lot of girls in a school to raise a child and be so young and go to school and wonder how you are going to support that child, either on your own or with the father. It's difficult. The struggle was, how am I going to graduate? How am I going to raise two boys by myself and go to school and go to college, be there for them and support them and be the best mom I can be?"
At Cape Cod Tech, 12 students dropped out of last year's graduating class of 181, or 6.6 percent of the class. Across Cape Cod and the Islands' 15 school districts, more than 7 percent of the Class of 2008's 3,000 students never received a high school diploma.
17-year-old Rachel Perdel of Hyannis, a senior, sits across from Vilad, nodding along to the talk about struggles and stereotypes. She didn't want to drop out of school either. But she was falling behind with her grades and nearly did leave school -- because she saw no other choice.
"I almost dropped out. It was too much sometimes. Too much to deal with. Everything was going wrong in my life. I didn't live anywhere. I don't know. I didn't want that responsibliity of waking up and going to school every day."
Two years ago, Cape Cod Tech used grant money from the local workforce investment board to set up the Graduate to Success program, after statistics showed a double-digit dropout rate at the school. Perdel is one of 22 seniors in the program, and she credits it and its support system with keeping her in school.
"I feel like I have security. Like, I needed more help in school than what I was getting. I will, I'm hoping to graduate June 4. A couple people told me I wasn't going to make it in life. I wasn't going to do much. It's just a self goal to get my diploma now."
All the research shows that dropping out of school is a gradual process, often prompted by unstable home lives, financial problems, pregnancy or general feeling of being an outsider in their own schools. And that's the story Perdel and dozens of other Cape Codders, both young and old, say is the case here on Cape Cod as well.
"There's different reasons. Some that it's just too hard for them. My best friend dropped out of high school because he got made fun of too much. Um, so, there's vast varieties why people drop out of high school."
William Teranova is the Dean of Students at Cape Cod Tech. He's written about the issue of dropping out of high school, and in his role as the school's dean, he's often one of the first people to recognize when a student is heading down the pathway to leaving school.
"No one comes to school one day without any issues and says, 'I'm going to drop out today.' Usually it's a process that started six months to a year before, where their attendance has dropped, their discipline has increased, thier grades have been fluctuating or they've been failing classes. And usually when they don't see a hope in graduation, they tend to start cutting ties."
Support and intervention programs seem to work. The Graduate to Success program has helped decrease the technical school's dropout rate from 16 percent for the class 2006 to less than 8 percent last year. But it's crucial to get to the students before they give up on school, without considering other options.
Teranova holds up a chart he created to help identify and track potential dropouts. It's hard to generalize, but educators say there are specific indicators that typically appear when a student is on the verge of dropping out.
"We took all the indicators, the indicators we thought were important to recognizing students at risk -- grades, attendance, discipline. Then we assigned a point value to each area."
Every student in the school has a chart with their name on it. And of the eleven students who received the highest point values in 2006, five did not graduate, while several others transferred out of the district where they can no longer be tracked.
"It's sad. There's been many sleepless nights because of the things going on with these students. They may not believe it, but they do stay with me."
But sometimes, not usually but sometimes, kids come back.
"Just because they drop-out, doesn't mean they are unreachable ... Sometimes I'll call into the summer. I called one student, hey, you've got a credit or two left, come in and let's finish up. He did, and we had pictures of him as he wore his cap and gown around school in October. He saw his friends in the hallway congratulating him. It was pure joy. He got the experience of graduating from high school."
Society pays a price when students don't graduate from school. It affects the region's workforce and its ability to attract employers. On Cape Cod, that's a real issue as young working families continue to leave the area. Meanwhile, for the person who dropped out, statistics say they face a lower lifetime earning potential and they're also likely to rely on state assistance to get by.
Listen to this story.For the communities of Cape Cod and suburban Boston, young people dropping out of high school is a serious issue. The statistics are lower than in the city, to be sure, but on Cape Cod alone for the Class of 2008, dropout rates ranged from zero in Provincetown to seventeen percent in Mashpee -- with the highest numbers found in the districts with the most needy children. As part of WGBH's ongoing, in- depth look at the dropout issue, our reporter Sean Corcoran talks to young people about why dropping out became an option, and he looks at some efforts to keep students in school.
People have ideas and assumptions about high school dropouts and so-called 'at-risk youth' in general. 17-year-old Allison Vilad of Marston Mills on Cape Cod knows this, she says, because she's one of the students that carries that somewhat distasteful label.
"People think, oh, at-risk students. They just don't want to be in school. They are just tired of school. They don't care. But there are certain circumstances that people don't see behind the scenes. They don't live our life. They don't know what we go through to make us be classified as an at-risk student. They just think we are just kids that do drugs and alcohol. That is their perception of at-risk students."
Vilad is part of the Graduate to Success program at Cape Cod's regional vocational and technical school in Harwich. Programs like this one -- and there are only a handful on Cape Cod -- provide a variety of supports for students who are facing the frightening decision of dropping out. And in Vilad's case, it wasn't drugs, alcohol or financial issues that threatened graduation. It was something much more basic -- life.
"I just gave birth to twin boys back in October. So, I know it's a struggle for a lot of girls in a school to raise a child and be so young and go to school and wonder how you are going to support that child, either on your own or with the father. It's difficult. The struggle was, how am I going to graduate? How am I going to raise two boys by myself and go to school and go to college, be there for them and support them and be the best mom I can be?"
At Cape Cod Tech, 12 students dropped out of last year's graduating class of 181, or 6.6 percent of the class. Across Cape Cod and the Islands' 15 school districts, more than 7 percent of the Class of 2008's 3,000 students never received a high school diploma.
17-year-old Rachel Perdel of Hyannis, a senior, sits across from Vilad, nodding along to the talk about struggles and stereotypes. She didn't want to drop out of school either. But she was falling behind with her grades and nearly did leave school -- because she saw no other choice.
"I almost dropped out. It was too much sometimes. Too much to deal with. Everything was going wrong in my life. I didn't live anywhere. I don't know. I didn't want that responsibliity of waking up and going to school every day."
Two years ago, Cape Cod Tech used grant money from the local workforce investment board to set up the Graduate to Success program, after statistics showed a double-digit dropout rate at the school. Perdel is one of 22 seniors in the program, and she credits it and its support system with keeping her in school.
"I feel like I have security. Like, I needed more help in school than what I was getting. I will, I'm hoping to graduate June 4. A couple people told me I wasn't going to make it in life. I wasn't going to do much. It's just a self goal to get my diploma now."
All the research shows that dropping out of school is a gradual process, often prompted by unstable home lives, financial problems, pregnancy or general feeling of being an outsider in their own schools. And that's the story Perdel and dozens of other Cape Codders, both young and old, say is the case here on Cape Cod as well.
"There's different reasons. Some that it's just too hard for them. My best friend dropped out of high school because he got made fun of too much. Um, so, there's vast varieties why people drop out of high school."
William Teranova is the Dean of Students at Cape Cod Tech. He's written about the issue of dropping out of high school, and in his role as the school's dean, he's often one of the first people to recognize when a student is heading down the pathway to leaving school.
"No one comes to school one day without any issues and says, 'I'm going to drop out today.' Usually it's a process that started six months to a year before, where their attendance has dropped, their discipline has increased, thier grades have been fluctuating or they've been failing classes. And usually when they don't see a hope in graduation, they tend to start cutting ties."
Support and intervention programs seem to work. The Graduate to Success program has helped decrease the technical school's dropout rate from 16 percent for the class 2006 to less than 8 percent last year. But it's crucial to get to the students before they give up on school, without considering other options.
Teranova holds up a chart he created to help identify and track potential dropouts. It's hard to generalize, but educators say there are specific indicators that typically appear when a student is on the verge of dropping out.
"We took all the indicators, the indicators we thought were important to recognizing students at risk -- grades, attendance, discipline. Then we assigned a point value to each area."
Every student in the school has a chart with their name on it. And of the eleven students who received the highest point values in 2006, five did not graduate, while several others transferred out of the district where they can no longer be tracked.
"It's sad. There's been many sleepless nights because of the things going on with these students. They may not believe it, but they do stay with me."
But sometimes, not usually but sometimes, kids come back.
"Just because they drop-out, doesn't mean they are unreachable ... Sometimes I'll call into the summer. I called one student, hey, you've got a credit or two left, come in and let's finish up. He did, and we had pictures of him as he wore his cap and gown around school in October. He saw his friends in the hallway congratulating him. It was pure joy. He got the experience of graduating from high school."
Society pays a price when students don't graduate from school. It affects the region's workforce and its ability to attract employers. On Cape Cod, that's a real issue as young working families continue to leave the area. Meanwhile, for the person who dropped out, statistics say they face a lower lifetime earning potential and they're also likely to rely on state assistance to get by.
