The One/Third Summit at 9 a.m. Saturday at John S. Davidson Fine Arts Magnet School will address dropout prevention for Richmond County schools students.
Community input is welcome at the meeting, which will feature a student panel of nontraditional students who dropped out of high school and breakout groups to work on a five-year strategic plan, said schools spokesman Louis Svehla.
"The purpose of the summit is to create a community action plan," said co-chairwoman Sue Parr.
The summit's funding came from a grant by America's Promise Alliance, a national group that works to improve high school graduation rates.
The summit's name reflects that about a third of Richmond County students fail to graduate. According to the Adequate Yearly Progress reports, Richmond County schools had a graduation rate of 68.4 percent in 2009. In 2008, it was 63.8 percent. According to the most recent Annie E. Casey Foundation Kids Count Data Book, an estimated 46 percent of Georgia teens 16-19 years old are high school dropouts.
The summit is led by Ms. Parr, the president and chief executive officer for the Augusta Metro Chamber of Commerce, and Tina Marshall-Bradley, a special assistant to the provost at Paine College.
The co-chairwomen say community involvement in crafting a plan is crucial.
"The dropout rate impacts us all, and it is all of our responsibility to address it," Dr. Marshall-Bradley said.
Everyone's voice will be equal, she said, from state policy makers to faith-based groups, higher education, teachers and concerned citizens.
"An educated work force is vital to the entire community," Ms. Parr said.
They expect to have a draft of the strategic plan to present for public comment in October and finalize the plan by early November, Dr. Marshall-Bradley said.
Reach Sarah Day Owen at (706) 823-3223 or sarah.owen@augustachronicle.com.
SIGN UP
WHAT: The One/Third Summit on dropout prevention for Richmond County schools students
WHERE: John S. Davidson Fine Arts Magnet School, 615 12th St.
WHEN: 9 a.m. Saturday
REGISTER: (706) 721-7464 or augustachamber.net
TOOLS FOR SUCCESS
America's Promise Alliance has identified five things that a child needs to succeed. These conditions will be discussed at the meeting.
1. Caring Adults: An ongoing, secure relationship with caring adults.
2. Safe Places: Children need to be physically and emotionally safe.
3. Healthy Start: This includes regular check-ups and treatment, good nutrition, exercise and role models.
4. An Effective Education: The intellectual development and skills to equip children for future success.
5. Opportunities to Help Others: Children need to develop a sense of responsibility and caring, which is fostered by example.
Source: America's Promise Alliance, americaspromise.org
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1. Upper/Underclassman peer mentoring opportunities
2. Student based Conflict Resolution Counsel
3. Community Service based projects: i.e. Social Studies students collect treats for troops
4. Community Mentors: Have strong, sucessful local business leaders or even soldiers from Fort Gordon work with students individually or in groups on setting personal goals, accountability etc.
5. Realistic talk about adult life w/o versus w/ a HS Diploma
6. Early education about the available aid for college
7. Life Math Skills: How to balance a checkbook, How to create a personal budget, have kids identify the lifestyle they want and then realistically price everything from housing, electric, transportation etc to calculate what they must earn to acheive that lifestyle.
8. Early intervention: Put graduation coaches in the middle schools, not just high schools.
There are tons of things that combined can create a stronger and more motivated student body. The most sucessful solutions are likely to come from the student's themselves. Hold this style meeting with the students!
what input can A dropout actually contribute other than the standard line of "duh...i should have stayed in school, but i wanted to fit in with my other friends who dropped out, but i am going back to get my GED"...why not have a panel of students who dropped out and decided to go back to school to complete their education...
Technical training in High School would be a big help to keep the dropout rate down. All kids are not going to Collage and this would give them job skills.
The students who are a member of the panel are students who have dropped out and returned to school.
MJDW, You and I have the same ideas. If a kid is going to drop out, at least he would have job skills to join the workforce. We need to start addressing this as early as Middle School. Every child needs a route to succeed and be a productive citizen, dropout or not. I have taught school, and we were having this debate 25 years ago.
harris, that is corrrect, as early as 9th i can remember what we called 'VOTECH" or vocational technical school where those not going to college would leave at noon and take courses such as auto repair, warehousing, carpentry.....etc. my question is where are the vocational schools in richmond coounty???? if there are none where is the money going to come from...it is already frittered away of unneeded, wasteful and unnecessary construction of athletic venues for schools that have in the past consistantly failed to meet ayp and have the highest drop out rates and the lowest crct/SAT test scores...it would have been better to turn one or both of the worst performing high schools into vocational traning centers, expell all of the disruptive, troublemaking and violent students...oh i forgot..then that would mean closing 2-3 high schools and the "knucklehead"...oops i mean the alternative school. that's right i forgot..again it's high school football season and no school board member would want to have to close a high school in their district that would mean the loss of a football team and state/federal education funds that could go towards another useless "program" that wont work
If a child cannot read on grade level by the end of 3rd grade, the chances of them ever reading at grade level plummets to nearly zero, and their risk for dropping out is nearly assured. It doesn't start in high school or middle school, it starts in elementary school.
I'll give you that corgimom, however, we do not want o appear like Russia where kids are funneled based on tests early in elementary school. We need to figure out how to make all of our kids productive citizens, whichever way that leads.
I hate to tell you this, but because of standardized tests, kids are funneled based on tests early in elementary school. They get tested the very first day of kindergarten and it goes on from there.