Saturday is "Reach Out To Dropouts" day for HISD
Saturday is HISD's big day to get dropouts back in school. HISD's press office has sent out the following information:
On Saturday, August 27, 1,262 volunteers and HISD teachers and officials will go door-to-door in neighborhoods around 16 high schools to find dropouts and get them back into school. The teams, which will include former dropouts who turned their lives around by going back to school, will gather at the high schools at 8 a.m. and stream out into the neighborhoods to catch kids at home early on a Saturday morning.
The massive dropout recovery effort – called “Reach Out to Dropouts” – is believed to be the largest of its kind ever attempted.
HISD Superintendent Abelardo Saavedra and Houston Mayor Bill White will go to Milby High School, 1601 Broadway, at 8 a.m. to greet volunteers. Then Dr. Saavedra will lead a team into neighborhoods around Milby to search for dropouts. One of Dr. Saavedra’s team members will be Emmanuel Miranda, a former dropout who came back to Milby last year and then graduated in May. Another of Dr. Saavedra’s team members will be his 22-year-old daughter Elizabeth.
Last year, HISD and its volunteers went to homes around eight high schools and convinced about a hundred dropouts to come back to school. Then HISD hired 10 dropout prevention specialists and started going after even more dropouts. Eventually, 291 dropouts were convinced to come back to school, and last May 48 of those former dropouts graduated from high school.
[snip]
The effort already is paying off – even before the first door is knocked. In the days leading up to Saturday, HISD has received more than 100 telephone calls from parents and dropouts about getting kids back into school.
HISD will try to contact hundreds of former students Saturday in hopes of persuading many of them to come back to school. Every high school in HISD – not just the 16 targeted Saturday – will be open for business Saturday to receive dropouts who want to re-enroll. The HISD teams will encourage the dropouts to drop what they’re doing that Saturday morning and go right to the school to re-enroll.
Every dropout who comes back to school will get school supplies donated by Wal-Mart. To make sure the students don’t drop back out again, HISD will create individual graduation plans for every student, and will assign an adult advocate to monitor the progress of that student. The dropout prevention specialists also will be assigned to make sure the former dropouts stay in school.
(Someday I would love to tag along with a dropout prevention specialist and see what the job entails. I'll bet it's very interesting.)
Every student who graduates from high school has a much better chance of leading a productive and independent life, and we wish everyone involved the best of luck.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 08/26/05 09:19 AM | Houston Miscellany | Print | Comments (0)
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