The Graduation Rate

A psychologist. A culinary entrepreneur. A day-care operator. For just a moment, three students who stood before a packed breakfast Thursday weren’t what they are today, but what they dream of becoming tomorrow. For a moment, they were the face of the long and continuing effort to raise the graduation rate of Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools. It’s a hard fight measured by numbers, but it will be won with heart. More of us must join this community effort to help our students achieve their dreams.

“The caring adult is the secret weapon in all of this,” Mike Wells, a lawyer and leader in the campaign, told the group gathered at Thursday’s education summit at Wake Forest University’s Bridger Field House.

It’s going to take aggressiveness and broad participation to raise the 73.6-percent graduation rate for city-county schools to 90 percent by 2018, the goal of area leaders. Sheryll Strode, a mentor who received this year’s Education Champion award at the breakfast, acknowledged that she’s not above asking people in the grocery-store checkout line if they’d like to mentor a high-school student.

Whatever it takes.

This year’s graduation rate is only a slight increase from last year’s. It’s unacceptable that in The City of Arts and Innovation, which can land nationally respected businesses and make headlines across the country for its medical breakthroughs, almost a third of the public high-school students are dropping out. This was not a problem in the time of tobacco and textiles, but it won’t fly in the era of galleries and breakthroughs. Some pin the blame for the low graduation rate on parents of dropouts. We do need to find out ways to get more parents to take an active role in their children’s education. But at the same time, we must apply other methods to raise the rate.

The foundation of our future has to be an educated work force, and a high-school diploma is the bare minimum for that. The school system and several people in the community have been working at that for years, but they need help.

“Raising the graduation rate means looking for multiple avenues for kids to succeed and to get the support they need, when they need it,” school-board member Elisabeth Motsinger, who was at the breakfast, said in an e-mail to the Journal. “There is increasing focus on school readiness and early literacy. Learning to read has many components and we need to find ways to help all children develop both language and math literacy in their early elementary years. Partnership with community members is the best way to connect kids with caring adults.”

Educators are trying a variety of methods to engage students and keep them in school. For example, they’ll soon offer a program of outdoor personal development and teamwork called “Ropes.” Established efforts such as the Community Education Collaborative and Communities in Schools have been making a difference. United Way of Forsyth County is coordinating an initiative at Philo Magnet Academy and Parkland High School that has improved student performance at those schools, and is expanding the program to Carver High School and Mineral Springs Middle School. The community collaborative received $500,000 from the state Thursday to continue its efforts. The money is certainly needed, and perhaps some could go to programs such as more night classes for dropouts who work during the day. But as Wells said, money alone is not enough. “We’ve got to have helping hands.”

Talisha Crawford, JaKenya Samuels and Di’Jon Watson, who each received a $1,000 scholarship at the breakfast, are living proof of that. Each credited their mentor — Edith Bailey, Helen Harris and David Saunders, respectively — for pushing them to graduate. In a prepared statement, Samuels said that Harris “was somebody to talk to, make you stay in school and do your work, to tell you all the positive things and not the negative.”

Harris said: “We know how to communicate with each other. I’m not there to push her, but to guide her and to be an encourager for her.”

Crawford, an Atkins High School graduate, attends Livingstone College and wants to study psychology and have her own practice. Samuels, also an Atkins graduate, is enrolled at Forsyth Technical Community College and wants to own a child-care center. Watson, a North Forsyth High School graduate, begins culinary-arts studies at Guilford Technical Community College this spring and wants to have his own catering business or restaurant.

Their futures are bright. But too many of their former classmates aren’t as fortunate. About 800 high-school students in the local school system drop out every year, severely handicapping their futures in our transforming economy. They leave gaps in the work force that we can’t afford. Some will turn to social-service agencies for help. Some will land in jail.

It’s a bleak picture. But it’s not an inevitable one. We can all play a role in changing it. Mentoring a student is a great place to start.