$1-Million L.A. Schools Program : Dropout Prevention Plan to Start in Kindergarten

A pilot program aimed at getting to students before they become dropouts is scheduled to begin in September at 21 inner-city schools, Los Angeles district officials announced Monday.

The $1-million program, targeted for students from kindergarten through high school, is expected to receive the official go-ahead from the district’s school board at its next meeting.

Schools involved are Fremont, Garfield, Jefferson, Jordan, Lincoln, Locke and Roosevelt and a junior high and elementary school near each high school, said Supt. Harry Handler, who presented the program to the board.

Instead of focusing all dropout attention on records, Handler said, the district’s new program is to attack the problem on several fronts. For elementary and junior high students, there will be more emphasis on tutoring and counseling help. Among other additions to existing dropout-prevention programs, high school students will be advised that they can combine traditional course work with evening adult education and occupational training programs.

Additionally, the program will establish a districtwide procedure so that officials can get an accurate count of the number of students who actually drop out. In the past, the school district kept figures only on the decline in a school’s enrollment. In some cases, students who left one school and enrolled in another were tallied in the same category as students who dropped out.

Last February a report issued by the school district stated that 44% of the 1981 sophomore class never graduated from high school. In 10 of the district’s 49 high schools, more than half the students left before completing their education.

Although district officials said this “attrition rate” was a close approximation of the dropout rate, no one could be certain.

Under criteria established in the pilot program, any student who leaves school before graduation from high school and does not enter another school within 45 days will be classified as a dropout.

San Fernando Valley board members Roberta Weintraub and David Armor asked that the district expand the dropout-prevention program to include a Valley elementary, junior high and high school. San Fernando High had the district’s fifth-highest dropout rate, and Polytechnic High in Sun Valley was ranked 16th.

Handler said his staff would investigate adding San Fernando Valley schools to the program.

In other action Monday, the board unanimously approved a proposal calling on the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency to share tax money raised in redevelopment areas with the school district in order to ease overcrowding at schools in or near redevelopment areas.

A July 1 memo issued by the agency expressed some interest in some of the district’s ideas for joint ventures but added that “in cases where direct financial assistance is requested, the (agency) is not in a position to assist because of its own limited” resources.

Even with the knowledge of the agency’s reluctance to embrace the revenue sharing plan, school board members said they will go ahead with efforts to get financial help from the agency.