When it comes to stopping dropouts everyone is doing something—and everyone can be doing more

“What specific programs do you have in place to prevent and recover dropouts?”

Ten years ago, if you asked this question to school leaders, it wasn’t unusual to be met with silence. Many forward-thinking leaders were deeply invested and engaged in best practices when it came to helping students who had fallen behind and re-engaging those who had left, but that wasn’t the case everywhere.

Today, it’s almost impossible to find a school leader who can’t describe a specific program aimed at helping more students get to graduation. And that means it’s time to start asking a follow-up question:

“OK. What else?”

Frankly, it’s not easy to ask questions like this. No one in their right mind would argue that teachers, administrators, counselors and budgets aren’t already stretched thin.

But in a nation in which nearly 575,000 students are leaving school without a credential each year, it’s vital to identify ways to provide more pathways to graduation, especially those that can be implemented with little additional work and little additional money.

There is simply no one-size-fits-all solution for every at-risk student. And just because a student doesn’t succeed in one program doesn’t mean they can’t succeed.

So: What specific programs do you have in place to prevent and recover dropouts?

And: What else?

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Graduation Alliance’s dropout recovery services are a turn-key solution that can be added to any district’s slate of programming for at-risk students without impacting any other program. Its takes just 15 minutes to find out if Graduation Alliance can help your district help more students. Just click here.