State Finds 48% Rise in Dropouts Since 1986 : Schools: The Glendale district says the increase from 12.9% to 19.1% makes things appear worse than they are because it doesn’t take transiency into account.

Glendale school officials said a state report issued this week showing the district’s high school dropout rate had jumped 48% in three years made things appear worse than they actually are.

State figures released Monday showed that 19.1% of the Glendale Unified School District’s class of 1989 dropped out of school, compared with 13.1% of the class of 1988 and 12.9% of the class of 1986. Despite the increase, last year’s rate measured below the statewide average of 20.4%. The Los Angeles Unified School District improved its rate from 42.7% in 1986 to about 35% last year.

Glendale’s 19.1% dropout rate represents about 377 students, 123 more dropouts than in 1986. During the same period, district enrollment grew from nearly 20,000 to 23,130.

About 200 of the 377 dropouts in last year’s class actually dropped out. The remaining 177 or so left the district and never had their records requested by another district or notified officials about where they were going, he said.

Even though the district provided the data used by the state, the figures do not accurately reflect the number of students dropping out of Glendale schools, said Gary Hess, the district’s director of student services.

Hess, who said he was “very surprised” by the figures, is reviewing each high school’s records.

“We will admit we have 9.6% of that graduating class in 1989 who left before they were 18, left without a high school diploma or left without passing the California proficiency exam,” Hess said.

“All the state of California uses the same criteria, so I have to accept that our dropout rate has increased 48% over the last three years,” he added. “But the penalty is the image. And we maintain that the image isn’t as bad as it appears.”

The state measures the dropout rate by calculating how many students entered the 10th grade and left high school without a diploma or its equivalent by the end of the 12th grade. A school has 45 days to track a student who leaves its campus. If it cannot, the youth is recorded as a dropout--even if the student enrolled elsewhere and did not notify or request grades and other records from the district he or she left, Hess said.

Because it is unlikely that the new school would not request the student’s records, a lack of notification is interpreted to mean that a student has dropped out, state officials said.

“It is not necessarily the fault of a school that they have a high dropout rate if things like transiency are the cause of it,” said Susie Lange, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Education. “They have no control if a kid is yanked out of school. But if a student’s records weren’t requested, there’s a good chance they dropped out. It’s important to be accurate about where these kids are.”

Glendale officials said the number of students moving in and out of Glendale each year is rising--about 40% of the district’s 24,000 students last year moved into and left the city--and that group is difficult to track.

Transiency rates have risen in part because of the growing number of new apartments in Glendale, which has allowed more mobility, Hess said. There were nearly 35,800 apartments and condominium units in 1986; today, there are nearly 42,600, said Keith Palmer, a senior planner for the city.

In addition, some youths are foreign students who return to their countries, where their schools do not request records or notify the district, Hess said.

“With students moving around at such a high rate, it’s not uncommon that their records aren’t requested,” said Vic Pallos, a district spokesman. “If a student is a no-show, there is an attempt to follow up by contacting the last known address or phone number. If no student is there and no indication is given of the whereabouts of the family, there’s not much we can do.”

Los Angeles Unified schools also have high transiency rates--as much as 70%--that make it difficult to track students.

“It’s a matter of tracking,” said Pete Martinez, coordinator of the Los Angeles district’s dropout prevention office. “We’re constantly advising our people to follow the paper trail. But we don’t dispel the validity of the state’s figures. It’s a benchmark we use that tells us we’re losing youngsters.”

Hess said the Glendale district will attempt next year to monitor the rate more closely by requesting specific information about where students are moving and the new schools they will attend. It also will continue a prevention program that locates dropouts who have remained in the Glendale area and encourages them to return to school, he said.