Another benefit to dropout recovery walks

Cleveland Rocks.

Cleveland, Texas, that is.

Cleveland School District staff and community members went door-to-door in search of dropouts on Sept. 11 to encourage those who had left school to re-enroll.

“This walk gave myself and the volunteers a better perspective into the lives of the students that are potential dropouts, thus better equipping us with resources for these students to re-enroll in high school,” Superintendent Kerry Cowart told The Cleveland Advocate.

That’s a salient point: While dropout recovery walks are gaining popularity nationwide as a means to get dropouts to “drop back in,” such initiatives shouldn’t been seen as successes or failures based solely on the number of students who are persuaded to re-enroll. Another benefit is the opportunity to learn about what caused students to drop-out — and what programs are necessary to not only get them back into school, but to get them to graduation day.