City sets focus on dropouts

Task force seeks ways to lower rate

Concerned that too many Haverhill students are dropping out of school, the city is looking for new ways to combat the problem.

School Superintendent Raleigh Buchanan is forming a task force of school and city officials and other community members to analyze what is behind Haverhill's relatively high dropout rate and how it might be reduced. The 10- to 15-member panel will begin meeting in September.

In 2006-2007, the most recent year for which state statistics are available, Haverhill had a 7.5 percent dropout rate, compared with the statewide average of 3.8 percent.

"This is a challenging district. I've got a lot of things that keep me busy, but knowing that I have that many kids dropping out weighs on me," said Buchanan. "There should be a better way to address the problem."

Mayor James J. Fiorentini, who appointed another panel four years ago that studied the dropout problem, welcomes the new committee, on which he will serve.

Fiorentini noted that the earlier commission, which has since disbanded, came up with some new ideas that were implemented, including the creation of a mandatory summer school for middle school students in need of it.

"But we still have too many kids, not just here but in every urban area throughout the Commonwealth, who are not finishing school, and we are very concerned about it," the mayor added.

Buchanan said that the new panel will be able to draw from the resources of a group of about 10 urban school district superintendents that is looking at the dropout issue on a regional level. That group, of which Buchanan is a member, is part of an urban school network that works with the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

The superintendent, who will be chairing the Haverhill task force, hopes to see the panel look broadly at prevention strategies, including ways to identify and assist children as young as fourth- and fifth-graders at risk of dropping out.

"If we are going to do anything dramatic about the dropout rate, we have to start early," he said.

Assistant High School principal Jon Mangion, who will serve on the Dropout Task Force, shares that view.

"One of the things that we are concerned about is kids that fail to have success in the lower grades," he said, noting that poor performance in math by a fifth- or sixth-grader is the "number one indicator" that a child faces a difficult time academically in high school.

Mangion would also like to see the task force explore how to better serve transient students, another population at risk of dropping out.

"Kids in the system long-term seem to me do better overall," he said, observing that children who move into the district from other communities often experience difficulties catching up academically and "seem to be not as invested" in the schools.

Mangion said the high school currently has a number of ongoing or planned initiatives targeting students who may be vulnerable to dropping out. Among them is an after-school tutoring program the school hopes to expand, and a new "Success Academy" set to begin this fall that will provide additional help for students who fail to pass ninth grade. He said other agencies outside the school system also offer programs.

"We do have a lot in place," he said. "The question is implementing it on a wider spectrum and making it better known."

School Committee member Susan Danehy, another appointee to the Dropout Task Force, believes Haverhill's dropout figure may be overstated due to the difficulty of accurately accounting for the status of transient students.

"But even if the number is down to 5 percent, that's too many," she said. "Statistics show that people who drop out don't have as high an earning potential as someone who does have a high school degree."

From her past experience as a substitute teacher in the Haverhill schools, Danehy agrees with the need to look at prevention as not just a high school concern.

"You start seeing kids who are feeling disenfranchised with the school system about Grade 6," she said. "That's probably where you need to start taking a look at why."

She said there is also a need to better engage parents as children move into the middle school level.

"In sixth grade, parent involvement drops off. Maybe we should start taking a look at fifth-grade parents to see parent involvement continue in the middle school," she said.

City Councilor James Donahue, a history teacher at Whittier Regional Vocational Technical High School and another task force appointee, is pleased to see the dropout attention get a "fresh set of eyes."

"I think it's a step in the right direction. It shows that we care about these kids that are dropping out or having problems in school," he said.