School Dropout Rate Falls in O.C. and State

Mirroring a statewide trend, Orange County’s high school dropout rate continued to fall last year, but most local districts--including the county’s largest--saw increases in their dropout rates from the previous year, new data shows.

Overall, 3,022 students in Orange County’s Class of 1993 left school before graduation day; that is 10.8% of the total, which is just over half of what it was in 1986, when the state began keeping track.

Statewide, the rate is 15.3%--down from 16.5% last year and 25% in 1986.

“Satisfied customers keep coming back,” Orange County Supt. John F. Dean said. “But I’m not going to stop until it’s 0%. I want every single kid in this county to graduate from high school. We’re trying to convince every student that he or she controls their own destiny--more of them are learning all the time that the message is ‘Stay in School.’ ”

According to a state Department of Education report scheduled for release today, Orange County now has a lower dropout rate than all but 21 of California’s 58 counties. And only three of Orange County’s districts--Santa Ana, Orange Unified and Tustin Unified--had higher dropout rates than the state average for the Class of 1993.

In Los Angeles County, the Class of 1993 lost 20.4% of its students, and the state’s largest district, Los Angeles Unified, had a dropout rate of 29.1%, the state’s data shows.

Statewide, dropout rates declined this year for every ethnic group except Pacific Islanders. For the first time, Latinos have a higher dropout rate (22.3%) than African Americans (22.1%), but both groups have enjoyed a steady fall in the dropout rate since 1986. Asian Americans statewide have an 8.2% dropout rate and Native Americans have an 18.3% dropout rate, the data shows. (Comparable data for Orange County was not available.)

Boys are more likely to quit school in California than girls, according to the data, which shows a 16.6% male dropout rate compared to a 13.9% rate for females.

“What we have is a tremendous number of people in California working incredibly hard to improve what’s going on in public schools, and they are doing it despite incredible odds,” said William D. Dawson, acting state superintendent of public instruction.

The state calculates dropout rate for a graduating class by looking at a three-year trend of students leaving school in 10th, 11th and 12th grades.

Within Orange County, eight of the 15 districts that include high schools had more dropouts in the Class of 1993 than 1992.

The highest rate came in the county’s largest district, Santa Ana Unified, where dropouts shot up after several years of steady decline. With 680 dropouts in the Class of 1993, Santa Ana has a 22.9% dropout rate, up from 16.2% last year but far from the district’s 41.8% dropout rate in 1986.

“The trend is steadily downward. Although the rate is up a little from last year, it really is a part of a continuing downward slope,” Santa Ana Unified spokeswoman Diane Thomas said. “We’re certainly headed in the right direction and we know that we need to continue in that direction. We’re not through yet.”

Santa Ana Supt. Rudy M. Castruita praised the district’s at-risk youth, stay-in-school and volunteer mentor programs for bringing dropouts down over the past few years, but said the ailing economy increases pressure on poor students to leave school early and go to work.

“We’ve been working real hard to keep the rate down,” Castruita said. “I don’t know why it’s jumped up. We’ll have to take a real serious look at it.”

Beyond Santa Ana, the largest increases in Orange County came in tiny Brea-Olinda Unified and Laguna Beach Unified. While the 1993 rates show huge hikes from 1992--Brea-Olinda more than doubled from 3.5% to 7.4% and Laguna jumped from 3.4% to 6.1%--the actual number of dropouts remains small: 29 in Brea-Olinda and 11 in Laguna Beach.

“I’m not sure why it is,” Laguna Beach Supt. Paul M. Possemato said. “With so few kids, there are times when some particular happenstance occurs and we lose three or four and the rate shoots up. It’s always a concern to us--any kid dropping out of school.”

On the plus side, Irvine Unified cut its dropout rate to just a third of what it was in 1992, and now enjoys the county’s lowest rate, 3.2%. “It’s great to be last,” said Supt. David E. Brown.

Other successes came in two of the county’s most urban areas, Anaheim and Garden Grove.

Last year, Garden Grove Unified had the county’s highest dropout rate, 17.7%; now the district is exactly even with the county rate of 10.8%, ranking fourth among the 15 districts.

The Anaheim Union High School District, once second only to Santa Ana in dropouts, now has a lower rate than all but five Orange County districts, with 7.1% of the Class of 1993 leaving school early.

Anaheim Supt. Cynthia F. Grennan credited her district’s flexible alternative high school program with helping more and more students graduate each year. The storefront schools are open from 7:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. each day, plus Saturday mornings, allowing students to pursue employment or other responsibilities while earning a diploma largely through independent study.

“We can accommodate them anytime,” Grennan said. There’s really not an excuse of ‘I can only come to school in the morning’ or ‘I can only come to school in the evening. We say, ‘Well, that’s fine kid, come on down!’

“The kids are seeing that we’re not going to pick at them all the time,” she explained. “If they can come for a few solid hours we’ll move them as fast as we can. We’re cheering them on.”

When contrasted with other states, California still has far to go in solving dropout problems.

According to 1990 Census data, 11.2% of 16- to 19-year-olds nationwide left school without earning a diploma; for California, the number was 14.3%, making it 49th, ahead of just Nevada.

Looking at the one-year dropout rate, California lost 5.6% of its students in 1992 while the national average for that year--the latest available--was 4.4%. In 1993, California’s one-year dropout rate fell slightly, to 5.2%.

Times education writer Jean Merl contributed to this report.

Dropping Dropouts

Orange County’s overall high school dropout rate continued to decline last year, mirroring a statewide trend. Nevertheless, more than half of the districts in the county had rising dropout rates from 1992 to 1993. A district-by-district look:

No. of dropouts % change District 1986 1992 1993 1993 1986-93 Anaheim Union 28.8% 10.9% 7.1% 261 -75.3% Brea Olinda Unified 4.2% 3.5% 7.4% 29 +76.2% Capistrano Unified 17.6% 8.7% 4.6% 86 -73.9% Fullerton Joint Union 19.9% 11.3% 9.2% 255 -53.8% Garden Grove Unified 11.9% 17.7% 10.8% 312 -9.2% Huntington Beach Union 20.1% 9.4% 9.8% 329 -51.2% Irvine Unified 8.8% 10.0% 3.2% 50 -63.6% Laguna Beach Unified 4.1% 3.4% 6.1% 11 +48.8% Los Alamitos Unified 9.5% 11.3% 8.1% 49 -14.7% Newport-Mesa Unified 19.1% 6.8% 7.5% 102 -60.7% Orange Unified 21.7% 16.3% 17.0% 314 -21.7% Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified 8.0% 4.0% 4.9% 73 -38.7% Saddleback Valley Unified 11.9% 7.9% 6.5% 120 -45.4% Santa Ana Unified 41.8% 16.2% 22.9% 680 -45.2% Tustin Unified 17.5% 14.3% 15.7% 138 -10.3% Orange County total 19.9% 12.0% 10.8% 3,022* -45.7% State total 25.0% 16.5% 15.3% 52,551 -38.8%

Note: 1986 is the first year the state began collecting dropout information. Dropout rate is calculated by a formula that includes students leaving school in 10th, 11th and 12th grades.

* Total does not add up because some students dropped out from county programs

Source: State Department of Education

Researched by JODI WILGOREN / Los Angeles Times