Did you know every year over 1.2 million students drop out of high school in the United States?  That’s one student every 26 seconds.

Did you know that 16% of students who begin ninth grade don’t receive a diploma four years later?

October is National Dropout Prevention Month.  While the dropout numbers have decreased from previous years, there are still many, many students who do not make it to the end of high school.  Dropout prevention is key to helping students achieve in life.  These students are the key to the future growth of the United States and its economy.  America runs on those who have job skills, people skills, and can join the workforce, essentially those who graduate high school.  Students who dropout are almost never work-ready or life-ready.  Students who drop out face a higher unemployment rate than those with a high school degree, and if they do get a job are shown to make about $10,000 less a year than someone with a high school degree.

There are ways to help prevent students from dropping out of school.  The National Dropout Prevention Center focuses on ways to improve the graduation rates of schools and help students set and achieve goals.  But there are individual ways to help as well.  Parents need to be aware of their students education and the signs of dropping out to help establish expectations for their children and help them create goals for school.  Ideally, dropout prevention starts at the early ages for children.  Educators also need to look out for dropout signs and work to generate opportunities for those students to better understand the material and receive higher grades, by tutoring, finding a mentor, etc..  Effective schools that meet the personal and academic needs of students help to prevent them from dropping out.

Organizations like Communities In Schools of Jacksonville are also dedicated to impacting the lives of struggling students and saving them from dropping out.  Through case management, literacy tutoring, and afterschool programs, Communities In Schools of Jacksonville helps these students reach for their goals and develop their future.

National Dropout Prevention Month brings to attention the students struggling and calls on the efforts to prevent those students from giving up on their education.

To learn more about Communities In Schools of Jacksonville's programs for helping students, click here.