Drop-out prevention plan discussed at local summit

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March 17, 2008

By Jennifer Jacob / staff writer The Meridian Star Mon Mar 17, 2008, 11:10 PM CDT

First statewide and now right here in Lauderdale County, the community is putting a heavy focus on an ever-present problem: high school drop-outs.

After statewide teen and adult summits for the destination graduation program, in which the school system asked for student and community input on the drop-out problem, State Superintendent Hank Bounds asked local school districts to hold similar summits in their towns.

The Meridian and Lauderdale County school districts were the first to hold a local summit when Meridian Superintendent of Schools Sylvia Autry and Lauderdale County Superintendent of Schools Randy Hodges met at Peavey Auditorium Monday to hear from members of the community, including educators, businesspeople, social service workers, religious leaders, and others.

Perhaps the most interesting group though, was the teen panel. Students, ranging from potential drop-outs to honor students, from both city and county high schools, were there to let the the educational community know what steps they thought needed to be taken to keep kids from dropping out of school.

Two problems that the students mentioned multiple times: not enough one-on-one time with teachers and not enough interest generated by the curriculum.

"There's a lot of different stuff you can get into that's just more interesting than school," one student said. Another pointed out that graduation requirements were so generalized that students often felt their classes had nothing to do with them, and that state testing forced teachers to keep teaching the same things each year, leaving students bored and jaded.

Students said they craved one-on-one time with teachers so they could let their teachers know what was going on in their lives, feeling that teachers could engage students more effectively if they had time to learn more about their interests and how they spend their free time.

The goal of the meeting was to take the ideas generated there and mold them into a "plan of action," to be sent to the state superintendent.

Mary Peavey, who, as part of the national board of the Afterschool Alliance program, helped organize and initiate the meeting, said she felt a lot of the drop-out problem was the result of apathy.

"It's up to us to inspire them," she said. "So many children have wonderful talents that go undiscerned."

Peavey said she hopes that more after-school programs will be made available to children, so that they can hone specific talents as well as have somewhere to go after school when their parents are still at work.

Autry and Hodges said part of their role at the summit was to get the word out.

"We must make the community aware," said Hodges, "so they'll have a good understanding of how serious this is."

"The more information we can communicate with everybody, the more successful we can be," Autry added.

Autry, Hodges, and Peavey agreed that part of the solution lies in a focus on early education, making sure that children do not get so behind in first and second grades that it become impossible for them to catch up later. But Hodges and Autry added that high school level prevention is still needed to meet the goals handed down by the Mississippi Department of Education. Those goals are to drop the drop-out rate 50 percent by 2012, to increase the graduation rate, and to address the truancy issue.

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