FRANKFORT — Beechwood High School in Fort Mitchell, best known for its string of state football championships, is well- regarded at the state Department of Education for something else.

        Over the past decade, it has had the lowest dropout rate in Kentucky. The district suffers about one dropout every two years.

DROPOUT RATES

Northern Ky. high schools   School, 1999 rate   Beechwood (7-12), 0.00   Bellevue (7-12), 2.77   Boone County, 2.04   Conner, 11.10   Ryle, 2.98   Campbell County, 1.42   Holmes, 0.78   Dayton (7-12), 6.78   Lloyd, 1.72   Highlands, 0.85   Gallatin County, 11.08   Grant County, 4.48   Dixie Heights, 1.86   Simon Kenton , 3.71   Scott, 1.25   Ludlow (7-12), 1.10   Newport, 3.15   Pendleton County, 6.89   Silver Grove School (K-12), 1.52   Walton Verona (7-12), 0.00   Williamstown (7-12), 4.55   All schools are grades nine through 12, unless otherwise noted.         Source: Kentucky Department of Education

        Beechwood Independent School District has about 1,000 students, of whom 300 are at its only high school — Beechwood High. In Kentucky as a whole, one student in 20 quits school. In a handful of districts, the annual rate is in double digits.

        Why is Beechwood different? “We have a school culture and a school climate in which kids are just expected to finish school,” Superintendent Fred Bassett said.

        Those factors — culture, climate and expectation — are being closely examined these days. The General Assembly and the state's education leaders have put a fresh emphasis on reducing dropout rates, with penalties for schools that fail to do so.

        When state test scores were released this year, seven high schools that otherwise would have qualified for performance bonuses were automatically disqualified because they had dropout rates of 8 percent or higher — a cutoff set by the Legislature in 1998.

        The 2000 General Assembly took a further step and ordered the Department of Education to set a comprehensive, statewide strategy for helping schools and districts bring rates down.

        The Kentucky Board of Education is to get a look at the plan when it meets Dec. 5 and 6 in Frankfort. In previous discussions, board members have expressed a desire for a plan that focuses on helping all children succeed and spotting potential dropouts early.

        It is generally accepted that adults with less than a high school education are most likely to end up on public assistance.

        The cycle too often is repeated with their children. In 1999, young adults whose family incomes were in the bottom 20 percent were five times more likely to drop out than those from families in the top 20 percent, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

        Kentucky, 36 other states and the District of Columbia report dropout rates to the national center. For 1997-98, the most recent year, Kentucky's rate was 5.2 percent as calculated by the center.

        Twelve states had higher rates, 22 had lower rates and three states also were at 5.2 percent. The range was 2.8 percent for North Dakota and Wisconsin to 11.4 for Louisiana and 12.8 for Washington, D.C.

        Kentucky Education Commissioner Gene Wilhoit said he thinks the dropout rate is highly controllable, and there is no district for which a high rate is inevitable.

        Rates tend to be lower in smaller, independent districts like Beechwood and higher in districts marked by poverty, but exceptions abound on both counts.

        “What's so intriguing to me about all this is, there is no pattern,” Mr. Wilhoit said.

        “Some people with similar circumstances to other districts are reducing that rate or keeping it low, while others with those conditions have fairly high rates,” he said. “To me, that is a positive situation. It means it's something that we can do something about with a conscious effort.”

        At Beechwood, that effort includes trying to draw every student into some extracurricular activity.

        In surveys of 15,000 Kentucky dropouts in the last two years, about six of every seven said they were not involved in any school activity outside the classroom.

        Not so at Beechwood, where Mr. Bassett said about 85 percent of students engage in at least one extracurricular activity.

        Mr. Bassett acknowledges that the Beechwood district has many advantages. It is comparatively affluent. Its students' parents are well-educated. They also are supportive and engaged. Most Beechwood graduates go on to college.

        Affluence is not a requisite for a low dropout rate, however.

        In Johnson County, in eastern Kentucky near the West Virginia state line, about two-thirds of the district's 3,800 students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunches because of low family incomes. Yet the dropout rate has declined three years in a row.

        The rate in 1998-99, the most recent year for which figures were available, was 1.7 percent — a third of what it had been in 1995-96.
       

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