New Program to Offer Dropouts a Hand : Anaheim High School District to Provide Job Help, Education

With funds from a special state grant, the Anaheim Union High School District next month will launch a new program to help dropouts.

The district will open its Anaheim Educational Clinic at 830 S. Dale St. on March 3 and hopes to work with up to 150 school dropouts. The former students will receive assistance in both academics and job training and placement.

Many of the students had to leave school because of family money problems in the first place, said district Supt. Cynthia Grennan.

“Many young people have to work to help support their families,” Grennan said. “They have many pressures on them, including their work.” She said the new program will help these dropouts continue their education while still holding down jobs. The program also will help the young people advance into better jobs, she said.

“I feel that for young people to survive in the 1980s and 1990s, they have to have a high school diploma,” Grennan said.

Districts Competed for Grants

The school district was among 70 in the state competing for--and one of nine to win--special grants to launch new programs for dropouts, according to Lorraine Kobett, director of student services for the school district. Anaheim Union, which will get $120,000 from the state for the first year of the program, is the only Orange County district to win one of the grants.

The new program doesn’t guarantee a diploma to dropout students, but school officials said it will make it easier for those who have that goal.

“The first thing we’ll do with the students is to have an assessment of where they are academically,” Kobett said. She added that most dropouts are found to be below the grade level they should be and need remedial studies.

“Each young person will be evaluated and placed in a prescriptive program that is computer-based,” Kobett said. “We will have a teacher, a full-time labor manager, and interns in social work and counseling from Cal State Fullerton there to help us. We’re going to work with each of the students on a one-to-one basis.

“Also, we’ll be going into the community and working with the families, doing all we can to get the young person back into education.”

Kobett said a key part of the program is having North Orange County Regional Occupational Program staffers work with the dropouts. The occupational specialists, she said, will help young people who need vocational skills, on-the-job training or help in locating a job.

Grennan and Kobett said the new program will try to ease students back into regular education by helping them with school subjects that at one time proved too much for them.

Child care will be provided for girls who dropped out of school to have babies. “Many of these girls have been staying at home, just taking care of their babies,” Kobett said.

Eligible students are those 13 to 19 years old who have been out of school 45 days or more and who live within Anaheim, Buena Park, La Palma or Cypress--cities in the Anaheim Union High School District.