Dropout Rates Go Down in 14 School Districts

South Pasadena and Duarte led San Gabriel Valley school districts in lowering their high-school dropout rates during 1986-89, and 12 other districts also posted improvements, according to a State Board of Education report released last month.

But the dropout rate climbed in six other San Gabriel Valley school districts, including Hacienda La Puente Unified and Alhambra City High School.

Overall, San Gabriel Valley schools are doing better than the state average, which indicates that one in five high school students fails to graduate.

Although methods of reporting vary from district to district, the state measures the dropout rate by seeing how many youngsters who entered the 10th grade left without a diploma or its equivalent at the end of the 12th grade. Schools must account for departing students within 45 days or the youth is counted as a dropout.

In two of the valley’s bigger districts, Pomona Unified lowered its dropout rate by 28% between 1986 and 1989 while Pasadena Unified saw its dropout rate rise 5.9%.

Many districts with plummeting dropout rates gave credit to an innovative state program that gave 200 California districts in high-risk areas money to hire dropout prevention counselors and start intensive programs to keep youths in school.

“It’s been the biggest help. It’s allowed us to do things that we wouldn’t have normally been able to do,” said Marcia McVey, deputy superintendent of Duarte Unified, which lowered its dropout rate from 59.7% to 7.4% in three years.

McVey said her district received $200,000, which allowed Duarte to establish an alternate school within Duarte High School for high-risk students.

In addition, “We’re definitely going out and finding students who have already dropped out and bringing them back,” McVey said.

At Azusa Unified, which lowered its dropout rate by 40.6% in the past three years, administrators credit an outreach program that includes counseling, alternatives to traditional education and tenacious case management of problem students.

A student services consultant visits youths at homes, talks to their families and links up students with special services such as child care.

“The program we’ve had for three years is now starting to take effect,” said Pat Colbert, Azusa’s child welfare and attendance consultant.

The El Monte High School District, which lowered its dropout rate by 9.2% in the last three years, also cites the state program, saying it allowed the school to hire a dropout prevention counselor to zero in on students who contemplate quitting school.

“We tell the students that school isn’t just a law to comply with, it’s a ticket to a better life. If you can get a kid to see that, you can turn him around,” said Steve Garcia, the coordinator for dropout prevention at El Monte Union High School.

One district in the San Gabriel Valley showing a high rate was the Alhambra City High School District, where the dropout rate jumped from 14.6% to 20.3% in the past three years, an increase of 39%.

But Alhambra officials say the figure is misleading because the district recently started classifying students by the number of credits they have earned instead of by grade standing in school.

As a result, “We have classified many of our seniors back to juniors and that’s why it looks as if they’re dropped out of school,” said Dianne Saurenman, assistant superintendent of pupil services for the Alhambra City High School District.

Additionally, Saurenman said the district has many foreign students who return to their homelands without notifying the district, which results in their being incorrectly classified as dropouts.

Caroline DeOlden, director of planning, assessment and evaluation for the Hacienda La Puente district, also faulted the state’s figures.

According to the state, the dropout rate in Hacienda La Puente has climbed from 11.5% to 17%, an increase of 47.8% over the past three years.

But DeOlden said that the district’s own figures show only a 4.5% dropout rate.

The disparity occurs because the state doesn’t factor in students who join the school after the 10th grade but the district does.

“In reality, you may start with 1,600 kids in the fall and during the year 200 new kids come in,” DeOlden said.

The Hacienda La Puente administrator said she will travel to Sacramento on June 19 for a meeting of an advisory committee for the California Board of Education that will evaluate the current method of collecting data on high school dropouts and propose changes.

DROPOUT RATES

District 1986 1989 Percent High change school enrollment Alhambra City 14.6 20.3 +39.0 9,300 Arcadia Unified 7.8 6.0 -23.1 2,090 Azusa Unified 53.5 31.8 -40.6 2,685 Baldwin Park Unified 19.7 14.3 -27.4 4,026 Bassett Unified 45.7 27.6 -39.6 1,471 Bonita Unified 18.2 15.0 -17.6 2,920 Charter Oak Unified 13.1 17.6 -34.4 1,672 Claremont Unified 9.5 5.6 -41.1 1,927 Covina Valley Unified 12.6 9.0 -28.6 3,446 Duarte Unified 59.7 7.4 -87.6 1,254 El Monte Union High 25.0 22.7 -9.2 8,261 Glendora Unified 14.6 14.7 +0.7 1,866 Hacienda La Puente Unified 11.5 17.0 +47.8 7,933 Monrovia Unified 14.6 13.2 -9.6 1,385 Pasadena Unified 20.5 21.7 +5.9 6,871 Pomona Unified 29.3 21.1 -28.0 5,068 Rowland Unified 19.2 18.5 -3.7 5,836 San Marino Unified .0 1.7 0 1,007 South Pasadena Unfied 20.8 2.4 -88.5 1,329 Temple City Unified 13.4 8.1 -39.6 1,548 Walnut Valley Unified 4.8 5.1 +6.3 3,902 West Covina Unified 22.8 26.1 +17.6 2,446

Source: state Department of Education