Drop-out rates for the Greenwood and Leflore County school districts appear to fall right in line with a legislative study's finding that between 25 and 44 percent of Mississippi's students quit school every year.
The 1995 freshman class at Greenwood High School lost about 100 students, or 36 percent, before it graduated last year with 179 students. Leflore County's senior class this year shows a similar decline with about 75 fewer students. That's 35 percent smaller than it was four years ago.
Various factors, including high-school students moving out of the district, contribute to those numbers. But while both districts have hit an enrollment skid over the last five years with an outward migration from the Delta, secondary school dropouts do account for a large chunk of the percentages.
The Leflore County School District had 87 dropouts in grades 7-12 during the 2001-2002 school year. During that same period, Greenwood Public Schools lost 40.
A study done last fall by the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research using 2000 data placed Mississippi 41st nationally in high-school completion rates, with a rate of 63 percent.
School officials attribute the alarming number of students giving up on school to a cascading list of maladies: neglect by parents, discipline problems, truancy, teen pregnancy, substance abuse and crime. But, they say, nearly all of those problems stem from one universal factor - illiteracy.
"Illiteracy is the most crippling factor to success in today's world," says Libby Lubas-Walker, director of special projects for Leflore County Schools. "If you can't read, you just about can't make it."
Both districts have tried to counteract this trend with extended school programs at middle schools and high schools. They offer after-school remediation to get the endangered students back on track. "If you can help those kids having problems in school, they are more likely to stay if they have some success," says Greenwood Superintendent Les Daniels.
Another option for the districts is to send struggling students to counseling sessions provided by Life Help. If their behavior leads them to Youth Court, they might also participate in Life Help's Adolescent Offender Program.
But by middle school, some students have already lagged so far behind grade level, it's hard for them to recover, says Linda Whittington, executive director of Communities in Schools. The national non-profit runs a number of enrichment programs designed to motivate students whose path to graduation isn't ensured.
She and others involved in the schools say they see a familiar pattern: Students most at risk of dropping out tend to hit a rut around their middle school years. They begin to flunk grades and see younger students pass them by. That eventually takes its toll on their self-esteem, according to Whittington.
"Part of the problem is we have 17-year-olds in seventh or eighth grade," she said. "That student does not want to be in class being perceived as dumb, so they act out in order get out of that situation and into an alternative school.
"I think self-esteem is a major problem in the Delta contributing to the drop-out rate."
Alternative school is another stop-gap the Greenwood district uses to prevent its most troubled youth from slipping away. It's the sort of the last resort for some students, Daniels said.
"It serves those kids who have been suspended repeatedly and who are just out of tune with what's going on in school," he said.
The ones who don't make it, even in alternative school, find themselves on a difficult path if they want to get back in school or earn a high school equivalency degree, says Jackie Lewis, a Department of Education school attendance officer assigned to Leflore County.
For teens trying to decide whether to stay in school or to drop out with plans on getting their GED, Lewis says she encourages them to stick with school. "We try to talk them out of GED programs because a GED is not as easy as people think it is," she said. "If you haven't gotten to a certain grade in school, there's no way in the world you can pass the GED."
Precursors to the behavior that leads students to this juncture usually begin early, Lewis said. She deals with children between ages 6 and 16, those who fall under the compulsory school attendance law.
When those students miss school excessively, the immediate consequences are handed to their parents in court. Some of them are unapologetic; some of them, drop-outs themselves, Lewis says.
"I've had parents tell me, 'Well, I made it. I didn't have a high school education, so he or she can make it also.'
"What they don't realize is that this is a different day and time," she continued. "The basic McDonald's job now wants you to have a high school education. And they might have made it, but you don't see a whole lot of cases like that."
Once the parents make sure their children attend, the school system tries to take care of the rest, says Leflore Superintendent Cedell Pulley.
"Our responsibility is keeping the child interested once the parent has gotten him to us," he said. "We try to make learning as interesting as we possibly can and as relevant as we can within the state benchmarks."
While the parents pay the price initially, a pattern of continued absences is ultimately the most harmful to the child in question, Lewis said. "When a child gets to a certain age and is missing school, it's hard to turn that child around."
Most educators and administrators agree that the most effective means of preventing eventual dropouts is to make habits out school attendance and learning early in life.
Researchers have learned that waiting until a child is five to bring them to school is almost too late, Lubas-Walker, the county's special services director, says.
"The most active learning period is from birth to 3," she said. "We're two years behind the maximum window of learning opportunity when we start with them at 5 in a traditional kindergarten setting."
The Greenwood School District has pre-kindergarten, which gives 4-year-olds a head start or time to catch up for their first year of elementary school.
The county district picks up some of its future students in the Even Start Family Literacy Program. The program, funded through the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act, adopts whole families and provides parenting classes, early childhood education and adult education and literacy.
It not only sets pre-schoolers up to succeed but also fills in the gaps for parents where they didn't in their youth. "We have a grandmother who's going to college, and it's great," Lubas-Walker said.
Even Start tracks the children from infancy into grade school, and so far the results have been positive, she said.
"The children are staying in school and making better grades. The longitudinal data has indicated they are excelling in kindergarten and the early grades."
Just getting the children to school is a crucial first step, Pulley said; the rest will follow if the students come.
"We feel if we can get them in school, we can teach them," he said. "If they start missing days, then they eventually drop out."
