North Carolina dropout rates at all time low

When Principal Eileen Tully started working at East Chapel Hill High School in 2009, she set a goal for the next five years: to reduce the number of dropouts to zero.

Neither the school nor the district have reached what Tully described as an audacious goal, but they’re getting close. In the 2013-14 school year, the high school dropout rate for Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools was 0.5 percent — or 19 students.

“We have not hit zero, but we have reduced it incrementally,” Tully said, explaining that the rates have decreased by about two percentage points each year. “I’m pretty confident in saying that all of the principals set goals with their faculty for reduction.”

The dropout rate for North Carolina public high schools hit an all-time low of 2.28 percent — or 10,404 students — for the 2013-14 school year. In the 2012-13 school year, the rate was 2.45 percent.

According to a press release, the number of dropouts in the CHCCS district has decreased by more than 50 percent over the past five years.

Jeffrey Reilly, CHCCS coordinator of student services, attributes the success to the many sources of support available to students.

“I think we just have a lot of people that are in place to help,” he said of the schools’ availability of counselors, social workers and other support staff.

Reilly said CHCCS also contracts with Carolina Outreach to provide students with mental health services and has an agreement with the juvenile court to provide a liaison to support students under 16 who become involved with the court system.

“If you’re giving kids different supports and programs, that’s going to keep them in school,” he said.

Reilly and Tully said mentoring, equity and college-readiness programs also help keep students in school.

Sheldon Lanier directs CHCCS’ college readiness program, Advancement Via Individual Determination, known as AVID. He said raising graduation rates was one of the main reasons the program was brought to CHCCS in 1996.

“It sets them up with a support system,” he said. “They have AVID teachers they can consistently come back to.”

He said the program provides a bridge for eighth graders to put them on the right track and continues to support them through high school. Additionally, students are in the program with the same group of peers through middle and high school.

“They’re in the same classes, they can check on each other to make sure they’re doing okay, that they’re applying to colleges and scholarships,” he said. “It’s like a family outside of the home, and that support is definitely needed in terms of dropout prevention.”

Reilly and Tully said there were no clear commonalities among the 19 students who dropped out. Through the years, reasons for dropping out have included family circumstances, academic difficulty and incarceration.

Tully said administrators at East Chapel Hill High School go through a list of at-risk students one by one, then meet with counselors and teachers to inform them of each student’s situation so they can give the students the support they need in and out of the classroom.

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