Dropouts are few in Sisters schools

Sisters High School has almost abolished the concept of "dropout." Last year (2002-03), according to the annual state report issued last week, the school had four drop- outs, producing a rate of 0.8 percent.

While that is extremely low, ironically it constituted an increase for Sisters. The year before, 2001-02, only three students dropped out, producing an official rate of 0.7 percent.

Dropout rates represent the percentage of students in grades 9-12 who leave school during the year. The rates do not include students in several exempted categories, including those who are home-schooled, are enrolled in an alternative school, or who receive a GED certificate or an adult high school diploma from a community college.

The base number upon which the rate is calculated is a school's enrollment in October of the school year being measured. Sisters High School for example, had 491 students in October 2002.

Local school officials attribute their success in minimizing dropouts to several factors, including strong efforts to track students and keep them from falling behind, alternative programs for those who don't do well in the standard program, and a large number of "co-curricular" activities, from sports to jazz bands, to keep students interested.

In conversation, school folks and interested patrons alike often cite another reason for success -- size. Because Sisters High School is relatively small, the theory goes, teachers and administrators can know virtually all students by name, giving students more of a feeling of belonging than their counterparts at larger, more anonymous schools.

But this year's dropout report offers ambiguous support, at best, for that theory. Among the nine public high schools in the three counties of Central Oregon, it's true that Sisters High School, the third smallest, again had the best 2002-03 dropout rate. But the second best rate, 1.5 percent, was achieved by the second largest high school, Mountain View in Bend, which had 1,497 students at the beginning of the last school year, more than three times Sisters' 491. Like Sisters, Mountain View also slipped a tenth of a point from the year before, when its rate was 1.4 percent.

Moreover, the largest of the nine schools, Redmond High School, had a highly respectable rate of 2.2 percent, slightly above its 1.5 percent of the year before.

The 2002-03 dropout rates for the remaining half-dozen high schools in the region (listed in order of size with October 2002 enrollments first) are: Bend, 1,192, 5.0 percent; Summit (Bend), 1,133, 2.1 percent; Crook County, 971, 6.6 percent; Madras, 878, 3.4 percent; La Pine, 472, 3.4 percent; Culver, 161, 2.5 percent.

Statewide, according to the Department of Education report, the overall 2002-03 dropout rate was 4.4 percent, the best since the state started measuring this phenomenon in a consistent way in 1991-92. The state rate has followed something of a bell curve, starting at 5.7 percent in 1991-92, rising to a peak of 7.4 percent in 1994-95, and then falling almost steadily to the past year's 4.4 percent. The latter number represents a 0.5-point reduction from the 4.9 percent rate achieved in 2001-02.

While acknowledging the gratifying success of efforts to retain students who in past years might have drifted away before graduating, Gene Evans, the chief education department spokesman, offered a cautionary note by giving a weak state economy part of the credit for low dropout rates.

"There just aren't any jobs for these kids to get," he said. "We know the dropout rate will increase when the economy gets better."

The new report provided one other point of comparison for local residents interested in school affairs.

Many will recall that about this time last year Sisters High School received an "exceptional" rating on the statewide school report card.

Sisters was one of only four high schools across the state so honored. The other three were substantially larger and on the other side of the mountains -- Sheldon High School in Eugene, Lincoln High School in Portland and Tualatin High School in Beaverton.

How did the other three members of this elite group fare in the latest dropout report? Tualatin, 1,736, 2.5 percent; Sheldon, 1,595, 1.9 percent; Lincoln, 1,429, 0.8 percent.