Drop-out grants will focus on at-risk students

By Scott Nicholson

Watauga County is getting a total of $220,000 for drop-out prevention programs, including a first-time grant to help assess at-risk students.

The grants were awarded by a special committee appointed by the N.C. General Assembly. Though the grants were announced in November, they were formally awarded on Dec. 17.

“We were lucky to get it with the help of (N.C.) Sen. Steve Goss and (N.C. Rep.) Cullie Tarleton,” said school board chairman Lowell Younce. One grant, for $150,000, will be used to expand an existing assessment center and help cut a drop-out rate that varies between 30 to 35 percent.

Younce said he saw during his first run for school board in 2000 that a third of students were dropping out, and he became interested in providing more technical training and non-academic programs.

“We need to always offer a balanced, yet a challenging, curriculum to every student,” he said. “Not all students are going to need a four-year college degree.”

He said students might not have been offered the subjects they were interested in and said sports, arts and music were important to keep students feeling connected with the school system.

“You have to have every student geared in the right direction and recognize their capabilities, and their needs and concerns, too,” Younce said. He noted drop-outs were a state and national problem as well.

Watauga County’s current graduation rate of 68 percent is nearly two percentage points below the national average.

Statewide, 39 organizations were awarded initial grants and 37 organizations were awarded continuation grants in the final round of dropout prevention grants disbursements from the North Carolina General Assembly. In all, $14.4 million in grants were awarded to help reduce the number of high school dropouts in North Carolina public schools.

The grants, which range in size from $9,100 to $150,000, were awarded to school systems, schools, agencies and non-profits that had originally applied for funding in 2007 but did not receive funding during the first round, or had applied for funding in 2008.

Watauga High School’s was one of four programs to receive new grants in the current awards cycle.

The Children’s Council/Smart Start of Watauga County received $70,000 in drop-out prevention funds. This project targets pregnant and parenting teens in Watauga County and will be administered through a partnership of local agencies.

The grant will address the high dropout rate associated with teen pregnancy. Some of the grant money will go toward building a resource library focusing on the needs of pregnant or parenting teens, contracts with doulas to provide services to identified teens throughout the last months of pregnancy through early postpartum, and money to train additional doulas. A “doula” is a person trained in childbirth who provides physical, emotional and informational support to mothers.

Partners in this grant are the Children’s Council, Watauga County Health Department, Watauga County Schools, Watauga Medical Center, and other area service providers.

Younce said the completion of the new high school, scheduled for a 2010 opening, would create a better learning environment and offer students more reasons to stay in school.

He cited the Junior ROTC and technical programs as assets and said the new facility would create a better overall learning environment. “I think that’s going to have a positive impact on everybody — staff, employees and students,” Younce said.

The North Carolina General Assembly’s Committee on Dropout Prevention selected the grant recipients. The committee was created by the General Assembly to help improve high school graduation rates in North Carolina.