Missoula seeks to curb high student dropout rate
| February 13, 2008 |  View for printing |
When four young Missoulians explained why they dropped out of high school Tuesday morning, two things stuck out.
All four said the choice was theirs to make - no one ordered them away. And all four pointed to someone seated in the Missoula Children's Theatre auditorium who personally helped them try to stay enrolled or got them back on track after they left school.
Beyond that, thoughts about preventing dropouts in Montana were as diverse as the teens who give up on school in this state. The goal of Tuesday's School Dropout Summit 2008 was to corral some of those ideas and harness them to change Montana's disturbingly poor statistics on school completion.
Missoula ranks second-lowest among the state's larger cities for graduating seniors, with 82.3 percent getting diplomas in 2005. But Sentinel High School Principal Rob Watson said those numbers can be deceptive. For example, Butte's graduation rate shifted 15 percent in just one year.
By ROB CHANEY of the Missoulian
For more information, contact the Youth Development Network or the Montana Forum for Children and Youth at 258-4965 or check its Web site at http://www.MissoulaForum.org.
Full Story: http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2 ... /news04.txt
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