Getting '05-06 dropouts to return is a challenge

Boston public school officials and the city's Private Industry Council had a gargantuan task: Try to persuade 1,660 students who dropped out in 2005-06 to return to school.

Last summer, two outreach workers sent letters, made calls, and visited homes. They reached 375 students, but only 34 initially agreed to start school in September. The students' ages ranged from 14 to 24. The first day of school, only six showed up.

It would be a roller coaster ride for the initiative's first year. The school system and the council created the program as one of several efforts to improve Boston's 59.1 percent four-year graduation rate. They saw this year's $400,000 investment, all grant money, as a small price to pay for possibly creating qualified workers rather seeing dropouts become a drain on the welfare system or wind up in jail.

The outreach workers, both former dropouts, Emmanuel Allen and his partner Marvin Moore, did not have set guidelines. They knew they would monitor returning dropouts, but also found themselves helping dozens of others who were not on the original list but were referred to the program. The number of dropouts back in school would fluctuate. As of March, the outreach workers had gotten 81 to re enter the school system or attend an alternative or GED program.

Of that group:

Forty are still in a district school or alternative program.

Twelve are in GED programs.

Four earned their GEDs.

Twenty-five dropped out again, two from GED plans .

Of those still in school, many have spotty attendance records and a few are on the verge of quitting.

School system officials expect to spend at least $76,000 more next year to increase the monitoring of the returning dropouts and make sure "none of these kids fall between the cracks," said Kathleen Mullin , who oversees district alternative programs and other areas.