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EDEN —  Fewer students dropped out of Rockingham County’s four high schools in 2008-09 than in any year during the past decade, according to preliminary figures.

Members of the Board of Education learned Monday that 217 students, or 4.78 percent of the high school population, dropped out during the past school year. School officials expect the state to release official dropout figures in March.

The district’s dropout rate for 1999-2000 was 5.53 percent, and the rate peaked at 6.46 percent in the 2005-06 school year.

School officials attributed the lower dropout rate to a combination of factors: an economic recession that provides fewer job opportunities for youth, better outreach efforts among faculty and staff, and earlier assessments of student performance.

For example, teachers are testing students on the sixth day of class and reassigning students who cannot handle the material, said Superintendent Rodney Shotwell.

“I wish I could say it was something we read or paid somebody to tell us, but it really comes down to good old common sense,” Shotwell said. “It really is working. We have not used data in the past like that to make decisions.”

In other business, board members learned that the infant and toddler programs at two schools will end in August as part of a two-year phase out. The board voted in 2008 to scale back the money-losing early childhood centers at Reidsville High School and Western Rockingham Middle School.

The district started the centers 10 years ago to provide care for young students with disabilities and children of teenaged mothers, school employees and the public. Both centers served about 40 children up to age 4, but the facilities ran deficits of as much as $135,000 a year.

Assistant Superintendent Jean Steverson said that the centers will continue to operate for children ages 3 and 4. The district will also try to find jobs within the system for the eight employees who will lose their jobs.

“I feel confident that when we phase out the other programs, we will be able to run the centers in the black,” she told the board.

Steverson attributed part of the center’s challenges to the recession, which caused a dip in enrollment.
 

Contact Morgan Josey Glover at 627-4881, Ext. 119, or morgan.josey@news-record.com