Research Wednesday: Schools that address transient students' underlying issues succeed in keeping them in class

Washington County Public Schools presented some dismaying news last week.

The Hagerstown, Md., school district’s dropout rate has increased for the past two years. In the 2009-10 year, the rate was 1.56 percent. That inched up to 1.80 in 2010-11 and then hitting 1.93 percent last school year, according to The Herald Mail.

It should be noted these numbers are down from the 5.5 percent rate in 2000, but seeing an increase in the dropout rate — even a small one — can be discouraging.

Donna Hanlin, assistant superintendent for curriculum, school administration and improvement, said part of the reason for the increase in dropouts was because of a more transient school population.

Research has shown that a transient student population does have negative impacts on student achievement  and the classroom environment.

District officials said they are considering an alternate high school to help these students earn their diplomas.

In this post, our first installment of a weekly feature called Research Wednesday, we’d like to share with you a study that shows that programs intended to help transient students only succeed when they address the underlying issues students are facing.

The study, published in Vol. 16, Issue 1 of The Journal of At-Risk Issues in 2011, shows that expecting mobile students to adapt to a traditional school paradigm won’t work — it’s up to educators to adapt to a transient student population.

In Nebraska, researchers Jody C. Iserngahen and Nadia Bulkin analyzed student data from the 2007-08 and 2008-09 school years. They found that dropout rates indeed increased due to students frequently moving locations. In one study, they found that 13 of 158 high school dropouts cited that reason for leaving school.

One 22-year-old student told them “I was an outsider, I didn’t fit in. I lost credit moving from out of state. I missed all of my friends and I just didn’t want to go. I was so far behind and I had lots of problems.”

But all isn’t lost for students like this. Schools that were successful in addressing the achievement gap between highly mobile and non-highly mobile students had the following characteristics:
• solid transition programs for mobile students
• administrative procedures that increased the overall quality of the school
• flexible classroom strategies
• collaborative support and effective communication

Some of the specific steps teachers took included limiting homework for students without supportive or available parents; creating “buddies” and small groups where students felt they belonged in classrooms; and reviewing curriculum material often with all students to make sure they all have the same knowledge base.

Is your school employing these steps to help its transient students? What else are you doing that is working to serve those who don’t always stay in one place? Comment here or e-mail us at editor@NoDropouts.org