Newly released figures today show that the dropout rate, student suspension rate and school violence rate all improved this past school year for the Wake County school system.
In the 2011-12 school year, Wake had 1,099 reported criminal acts, or 7.531 acts per 1,000 students. The prior school year, it was 1,132 acts or 7.952 acts per 1,000 students.
Click here for this year's school-by-school figures. Click here for last year's school-by-school figures.
The crime rate, suspension rate and high school dropout rate all improved this past school year in the Wake County school system.
New figures released by the state today show that Wake's dropout rate decreased from 3.53 percent in 2009-10 to 3.25 percent in 2010-11. Wake had 1,386 dropouts, down from 1,689 in the 2007-08 school year.
The report notes that Wake had among the largest 3-year dropout rate decreases among the 115 school districts.
Venita Peyton is taking shots at the leadership of the minority community for not doing enough to address the dropout issue in Wake County and other school issues.
In a blog post today, Peyton, a local conservative activist, complains that there are "few voices in the minority community who do more than react." She calls them "armchair dissociates" who "know what needs to be done but won't dirty their hands with the details, unless it includes money."
Peyton points to the large concentration in East and Southeast Raleigh of churches, sororities, fraternities, colleges and other community groups who could help out.
Suspension and dropout rates and Blue Diamond assessments will be on the agenda for today's Wake County school board student achievement committee meeting.
The majority of today's meeting is slated for a discussion of Wake's suspension and dropout data and an overview of the dropout professional learning team. Click here for the handout from the last meeting.
Guess what's the top reason why Wake County students receive a short-term suspension?
A short-term suspension is defined as one that's for less than 10 days of school. In 2008-09, 20,651 short-term suspensions were given to 10,918 students in Wake, costing 57,650 school days.
The top reason in Wake was:
Professional learning communities, suspension and dropout rates and Broughton High School's International Baccalaureate Program will be the topics of today's Wake County school board student achievement committee meeting.
The meeting will open with a discussion of options for PLT time and early release days. The board is supposed to find a way to keep the weekly PLT time without using the weekly Wednesday early dismissals that made the time possible this year.
The board is running out of options now that it adopted bell schedules for 2010-11 that no longer include the extra 10 minutes that had been added to the day.
Wake County school administrators are touting a reduction in the district's high school dropout rate.
In a press release today, school officials say that high schools reported a dropout rate of 3.47 percent for the 2008-09 academic year, the lowest rate since 2003-04. Figures show that 1,430 students dropped out last school year, compared to 1,689 the previous year.
The press release also says that the for the first time since 2000-01, dropout rates for each racial//ethnic group declined as compared to the previous year.
This From Michael Yarbrough, spokesman from the Durham Public Schools —
The number of Durham Public Schools students dropping out of school took a nosedive during the 2007-08 academic year, the system’s largest decrease in seven years. DPS now has one of the top five three-year changes in dropout counts among 115 school systems across the state of North Carolina. (Italics DPS.)
