Coaxing dropouts back in

Students give many reasons for dropping out of high school.

Then there are those like Anthony Haskins Jr., who fall behind in their classes, stop showing up, and then months or years later can’t remember what it was exactly that made them quit.

“I didn’t have any reasons for it; I just stopped,’’ said Haskins, 17, who dropped out during his freshman year at Madison Park High School in Roxbury.

Previously, students such as Haskins - there were 2,036 of them last year in Boston - might have never heard from the school system again, with many of their names logged among the lost causes.

But this year the district is trying something different to cut its dropout rate, which last year was double the state average, as it has been for years, with 40 percent of students in the class of 2008 failing to graduate.

School officials have begun a concerted effort, which they hope will become a national model, to reach out to the thousands of students who disappeared. They opened a small office with an overworked staff at a community center in Roxbury and have been reenrolling hundreds of dropouts.

“We’re losing too many students, and we’ve learned it’s better to be proactive - we can’t wait for them to come to us,’’ said Irvin Scott, Boston’s assistant superintendent for high schools. “So we’re going to them and letting them know we want them back.’’

Much of the hard work of trying to lure students back into the system falls on Marvin Moore and Emmanuel Allen, both former dropouts who went to college, earned degrees, and now call themselves “dropout outreach specialists.’’ They have been reaching out to dropouts for the past three years as employees of the Boston Private Industry Council, a public-private partnership between the city’s schools and employer community that has sought to blunt the dropout rate.

But this year the school gave Moore and Allen the help they have needed to get the job done. They now have a budget of about $325,000 and a full-time staff that includes a guidance councilor, a teacher, a truancy specialist, and a director, each of whom has played a role in trying to find students, examine their academic record, counsel them, place them in the appropriate school or program, and follow up with them to make sure they stick with it.

“Before it was just two of us doing patchwork,’’ Moore said. “There’s a lot more we can do now, and we hope it means us being more effective.’’

Their efforts over the past three years have had mixed results.

In 2006-07, of 1,680 high school students who dropped out the previous academic year, they reenrolled 81 students, but 53 of them dropped out again. The next school year, of 1,976 dropouts from the previous year, they brought 208 students back into the system, but 54 never showed up for classes and another 67 eventually quit. In 2008-2009, of 2,002 dropouts from the previous year, they reenrolled 202 students, but 30 didn’t show and 66 withdrew.

Karen Cowan, director of the new program, which the district is calling the Re-engagement Center, said her staff doesn’t expect to reach more of the dropouts, nearly half of whom have nonworking phone numbers or can’t be found.

The goal is not to reach more students but to retain those they reenroll.

“Before, it was a lot of hit or miss; we took a lot of guesses, and we didn’t have access to a lot of the resources we do now,’’ said Cowan, a former principal of Boston Day and Evening Academy. “Now, we have a central location and the ability to actually evaluate a student’s transcript, their attendance records, their MCAS scores. With the data, we can actually make a difference and figure out what didn’t work in the past. We can help match them to the right programs that will be successful.’’

Since the program began this summer, it has helped 192 teens who needed only a few more credits to graduate, through online classes. They have also reenrolled another 130 students, each of whom has been sent to a regular high school, an alternative school that caters to those in need of social services or language issues, or put in special accelerated programs or high school equivalency exam programs.

“This is the next step, and we expect this program will be a model for the country,’’ said Neil Sullivan, executive director of the Boston Private Industry Council. “We will be doing a lot more now than just having 15-minute conversations with students.’’

The process starts with letters sent to dropouts. The letters are followed up by a battery of automated calls and calls by the staff, who work from several small rooms at the John Shelburne Community Center on Washington Street.

When they reach students or parents, they try to persuade them to come to the center. Others, like Anthony Haskins Jr., show up on their own.

One morning this week, with prodding from his parents, the quiet 17-year-old who spent the summer doing janitorial work walked into the center’s offices. Beside him was his father - who dropped out decades before. He told the staff he wanted to reenroll, but he wasn’t sure what grade he qualified for or what credit he had.

They pulled his records - he hadn’t had a passing grade since middle school - and directed Haskins to watch a videotape series of testimonials from dropouts who decided to go back to school.

Then came the meeting with Moore, who sat across a table from the Haskins with an array of statistics showing the millions of dollars more that could earned over a lifetime by high school graduates compared with dropouts.

Moore told them his story of growing up in poverty and quitting school. He asked Haskins what he wanted to do with his life, what kind of school he would attend, and whether he was serious.

“By the time you reach my age, I want you to be more successful that me,’’ Haskins’s father told his son, who sat beside him impassively, with a scruffy chin, baggy jeans exposing red boxers, and bright white Nike basketball shoes. “But it’s all up to you. You’ve got to make the move. You know what it’s like out there.’’

When Moore asked whether he wanted to live off his parents for the rest of his life, Haskins shook his head.

“The more education you get, the more you get paid,’’ Moore said. “It all comes down to how much you want it.’’

Moore arranged for him to take an entrance exam the next day at ABCD University High School in downtown.

Haskins promised to be there.

“What’s your homework?’’ Moore asked.

“To get into school,’’ Haskins replied.

David Abel can be reached at dabel@globe.com.