Graduation rate takes a nose dive
Twenty-eight students failed to graduate last year
By Carla Gwaltney Owens Sentinel writer

One in four Hayesville High School students who were part of the Class of 2006 failed to graduate in four years. According to a new graduation cohort rating, which the State of North Carolina began gathering data for when the Class of 2006 entered high school in 2002, Hayesville High School had a 73.2% graduation rate.

Hayesville's cohort score was better than the majority of high schools across the state, with the average cohort graduation rate for the entire state at 68.1%.

What does this tell local educators? Dr. Gail Criss, Principal at Hayesville High School, said it tells them that, although they were able to meet the needs of the majority of their students, with one in four something went wrong. "We are going to have to take a look and try to identify the needs of all of our students," Criss stated. "For some of our students a traditional, four-year high school education is just not the answer."

The new graduation cohort rate does not take into account those students who took longer than four years to graduate. Criss said a five year graduation cohort score will be released later this year and will give a better view of how many total students graduated from that class, not just how many graduated in the allotted four years.

Out of the 112 students who entered the ninth grade in 2002, Criss said 82 graduated with regular diplomas. Two students who had mental handicaps graduated with certificates of completion. Criss explained that the state's new graduation rate does not take into account that two of the 112 students were not eligible for regular diplomas, therefore, the school's actual graduation rate should have been closer to 75%. In any case, Criss said that still means that one-fourth of the class didn't graduate, which she said she wants to improve. "I would have been more pleased to have been up their with the Chapel Hill school who had a 90% graduation rate."

The cohort rate takes into account those students who transferred out of the system as long as the school received an official request from another school for transfer. Also, it includes those students who trans- ferred into the county. It does not account for students who left and went onto receive a GED, Criss explained. Therefore, this new measurement is supposed to offer schools and the government a more accurate accounting of what a school's retention rate is. "The whole story," Criss said, "is who started and who finished. Of those students who started in 2002, how many finished four years later. And for us, the answer is that out of 112 that could have graduated, only 84 did graduate."

Criss said that when the scores were released she was certainly concerned for her students and she sat down with the yearbook from 2002 and looked at each face from the original group of students whomade up the Class of 2006. "I was overwhelmed by this," Criss said of reading the report from the first time. "I wanted to put faces to these numbers," she commented.

What she saw was that although some of the students may not have chosen to get a high school diploma they did go on to get a GED. This, she said, points out what she and many educators already know - that a traditional four-year education is not right for everybody. Although their goal is to keep kids in high school, provide them a good education and at the end see that they receive a diploma, she said some are just not going to fit into a traditional high school.

"The reality is that high school is just not for some of these kids," Criss commented. "For whatever reason - they don't like the drama of high school, they're not into attending the ball games...They are not bad students and they are not bad kids." For whatever reason, Criss said, the reality she and other educators are facing is that for some kids high school is difficult and they choose not to stay.

One answer, Criss said, is to look at each case separately. Each time you have someone drop out Criss said you have to try to stop and look at what factors effected that student. And then find ways to begin to answer the needs of this minority of students, who are not making it in a traditional setting. Currently, Criss said, Hayesville High School meets with each student who drops out and tries to work with them to keep them in school. One factor facing Hayesville, like many small schools, is the fact that they have only one fulltime counselor on staff for the entire student body. Criss said that although the current counselor does an outstanding job, that having only one person to deal with all the issues and problems of 400 students is certainly a challenge.

Criss explained that a group of teachers meets twice a month at HHS and looks at those students who they believe are at risk of leaving school. Criss said they look at each of those students and try to target their individual needs. One of the best ways, Criss said, of keeping a child in school is through a personal connection. She said that if members of the administration and faculty can become involved with a student and form a strong relationship it will help keep them connected and offer them the support they need to get them through the entire four years.

"In the near future we are going to have to come up with alternatives for our students," Criss said of the need for alternative educational options for students. She added that educators are going to have to begin to look for creative ways to provide an education for this at-risk group.

Clay County School Superintendent D. Scott Penland agreed with Criss' assessment, saying that the one-size-fits-all model of education is going to have to be looked at seriously.

Criss and Penland posed the question, "Is a traditional four-year high school for everyone?" In some cases Penland said students could realistically finish in three years, while others need a little longer than four years. Or for those students who don't enjoy the high school social environment, what about attending a community college to receive technical training.

One question posed to Penland at a recent meeting of North Carolina educators was: "What do you tell a student who wants to leave high school early, get a GED, enroll at a technical school where he or she will receive skilled training, graduate in a year and immediately have a good job making $40,000 a year?" Do you tell this student they don't have a good goal? That they won't be successful? That they need to stay in high school for four years? Of course not. Who has the right to say a skilled carpenter isn't as successful as a four-year college graduate?

This is an example of what Criss and Penland are talking about when they say offer students alternatives to a traditional education. And this is also one reason Criss believes Cherokee County's graduation rate of 80.9% was much higher than the state average. The combined graduation rate of the high school's in Cherokee County (Murphy High School, Hiawassee Dam High, and Andrews High) had a graduation cohort score among the highest in North Carolina, and Criss said one reason is because they offer students an alternative.

"Cherokee County did very well and we are proud for them," Criss said of their high graduation rate. "One advantage they have is their alternative school." Criss explained that because they are able to take students from all three high school's in the county, Cherokee can afford to operate an alternative high school which reaches many at-risk students by offering an alternative to the traditional high school education.

"We just don't have the numbers to support an alternative school," she added. However, Criss and Penland agreed that in the future Clay County is going to look into ways of providing students with alternatives. "In the future we are going to have to come up with alternatives for our students. We have to find a way for these students to get their diploma and a skill so they can get a good job," she said.

Criss said her school improvement team will be looking at specific ways that they can help keep these students in school and will be coming up with a plan for the high school to meet their needs.

As for Superintendent Penland, he believes the key is starting early. "You can't put all the blame on the shoulders of the high schools," he commented, saying that you cannot lay the blame for a high drop-out rate totally on the shoulders of a high school or give all the praise for a low drop-out rate to a high school either. A student is the combined efforts of the work done by many different individuals in grades Pre-K through 12th grade. The bottom line, according to Penland, is that intervention is going to have to start earlier than high school. If you wait until high school to begin helping, it is simply too late, he added.

Criss said that some education studies have shown that atrisk students can be identified as early as the third grade. Criss said this is not to say that high schools can't do more to reach these students, however, it does show that you can't wait until the ninth grade to begin recognizing at-risk students and find them the help they need.

Penland echoed this thought, saying that if a student comes to high school unprepared then they are fighting un uphill battle.

One specific way Hayesville Middle School is trying to do its part to insure students are ready for high school is through an "Attack Class." The class has been formed by HMS to help students who might otherwise be retained and forced to repeat a grade. According to Penland, this class takes those students and works intensively with them to help them get back to grade level so they can move on with their class. A small class setting provides these students with the additional, oneon one help that they need.

Hayesville Middle School Principal Mickey Noe recently shared with the Clay County Board of Education the success of another alternative program at HMS. He and faculty members have implemented afterschool homework labs for students. The labs offer students an opportunity to stay after school several days a week to receive help from teachers. Noe said the school began holding the homework help sessions one afternoon a week, but the demand was so great that they had to increase the labs to three afternoons to accommodate the 75 students who are currently signed-up.

Penland said the school pays for the teachers to stay after school and hold the homework labs. Penland said the school board is more than willing to pay to provide the service to students who are obviously wanting the extra help.

With every issue facing educators currently, from disappointing graduation rates to proposed curriculum changes that would make high school more rigorous, Penland said superintendents are in agreement that if you want to make a difference in the education of North Carolina's children you have to start at an early age.

If you want to make high school more rigorous so students can compete globally, or if you want to make sure more students who start high school graduate,

Penland said they all agreed that you have to begin to make changes at the elementary and middle school levels - where the entire foundation for a student's education is laid.

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