July 27, 2009 Reported By: Anne Ravana
One out of every five Maine students will not graduate from high school. That translates to about 3000 students per year, according to the maine department of education. Policy makers, educators and others looking for ways to reduce the state's dropout rate put their heads together at a summit in Orono today.
Eighteen-year-old Anthony Lary graduated from Portland High School this spring. But it wasn't an easy ride for him. "I wasn't too engaged in anything. I was on the computer most of the time. And I left near the end of freshman year and I left halfway through sophomore year. And I didn't come back until junior year."
During that time, Anthony was living on his own and worked as a chef and then as a dishwasher at a local restaurant. He says it was the Alternative Education Program at Portland High School that allowed him to finish school, because it was more flexible and allowed students to continue working. "I had shortened days. I got let out a little bit early so I could go to work and stuff. We were able to hand in our work when we were finished with it. There wasn't a deadline on anything so it made it a lot easier but it didn't take away from the fact that we wanted to get the work in. Like, we still worked hard and put the effort in that every other kid did."
Anthony Lary is one of the few students in Maine who leave school, and actually return and finish. With a goal of increasing the graduation rate from 80 percent to 90 percent over the next seven years, educators and legislators around the state are trying to better understand the needs of students like Anthony.
"You need to have the door always open for students to return and understand that there are options," says Beth Arsenault, director of the Alternative Education Program at Portland High School. She says it's a common misconception that kids who drop out are simply lazy, or indifferent. "I've never met a kid who dropped out. When you drop out you choose to do it, you had all of the support you needed it was just a decision you made. I've never met a kid for whom that's the case. I've met kids who have circumstantial factors that they just can't overcome. And when the decision becomes feeding your family, babysitting for your younger siblings, working so that you can pay your own rent because you don't live at home or being homeless and having to move from town to town, then you're not dropping out, you're just simply not able to continue on at school."
In fact, getting rid of the term "dropout" has been a topic of discusion at the two-day Maine Dropout Prevention Summit in Orono, where representatives from education, labor, health and human services and corrections are looking for answers.
"How is it that we meet the needs of these learners to achieve a high school diploma? It's as simple as that when you talk about defining a problem."
Maine's First Lady Karen Baldacci serves as chair of the Governor's Children's Cabinet.
"It really gets complicated when you take it to the community level. You know, who's responsible. When these kids don't show up to school who's tracking them? I mean there's a lot of barriers along the way but my goal is to start backwards. We want this child to achieve a high school diploma, and how do we get there?"
One step is the creation of a state-issued high school diploma. Students who have left school for various reasons may appeal to the state to receive credit for work that might not be recognized by their local school district, and if approved, receive a diploma from the state.
Shelley Reed of the Maine Department of Education, who organized the summit, says the state is trying out several different dropout prevention strategies, some developed by Clemson University "which is the national dropout prevention center. And in it it talks about mentoring and tutoring, it talks about service learning, it talks about lots of ways to support youth."
They need to stop worrying about the numbers and the rates and start thinking about the people and figuring out, putting out programs that are going to help those kids.>
Portland High School Alternative Education Program Director Beth Arsenault has her own suggestions for policy makers who want to help kids stay in school. "They need to stop worrying about the numbers and the rates and start thinking about the people and figuring out, putting out programs that are going to help those kids. I think that the way grading is done is pretty archaic and it's from a time that has long past. You could introduce more flexibility but maintain the integrity of the academics and keep these kids in school."
Recent Portland high school dropout-turned-graduate Anthony Lary says he's proud of having earned his diploma, but still has several challenges ahead of him. He hopes to attend college and he has a 4-month-old son. "He's doing very well and I'm taking care of him and I hope to see him graduate one day. I really want to."
Anthony says he'd like to study photography and someday start his own business.