Great gains at Charlestown High School

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January 26, 2010

Charlestown High’s graduation rate jumps nearly 10 percentage points

By TARA HETTINGER The News and Tribune Tue Jan 26, 2010, 12:13 AM EST

As a counselor at Charlestown High School, Lori Stinson is on the lookout early for any problems that may keep a child from graduating on time.

Last week, she met with a 15-year-old student, who has transferred out and back in to the school this year and was enrolling again, with her mother by her side.

Stinson said changing schools during the year is one of those red flags that can cause a student to get behind and later drop out, so she worked in a course for the student that will help her catch up on math, one of the more difficult subjects for the girl.

This is just part of the norm for counselors at the school, a practice she believes helped attribute to the school’s nearly 10 percentage point jump in graduation rates in 2009. Stinson said last year, she helped find a student a stable home and a way to pay her bills.

“She probably would have been a dropout. We got her a stable place to lay her head at night and a job at UPS,” Stinson said. “How could you not look at her and know she needed help and not help? You do, because you love them.”

Another student last year had two children and was struggling to make it to class. So, Stinson got her set up to go to Options Alternative School.

Both of those students graduated on time, with the class of 2009. The one who worked at UPS even went on to college.

Recently released graduation rates across the state show that CHS had 82 percent of students graduate in 2009. The previous year was 72.1 percent, according to the Indiana Department of Education.

Principal Keith Hedges, who took over this school year, said the credit all goes back to former Principal Dick Johnson and the staff, including the counselors who work to help each individual student achieve.

“We have really manageable numbers,” he said, adding that last year the school had 137 graduates. “We have the ability to give our seniors lots of personal attention and faculty can identify those at-risk students and refer them to counselors.”

Hedges said during the past three to five years, the school has implemented some changes, such as having credit-recovery courses, tutoring, basic skills classes that help students get back on track in subjects like math and English and other programs.

Now with the one-to-one laptop computer initiative, Stinson said credit recovery can also be taken at home.

Hedges said with any changes in a school, it takes 18 to 24 months to start to see progress. He’s hoping the new laptop program will show even more gains in the near future.

Hedges said his goal is to have a 90 percent graduation rate, but he fears cuts in Greater Clark County Schools’ budget may mean fewer interventions for those students who are on the edge of not graduating.

However, he said he hopes if that happens, the community will come forward to make sure those stay in place.

Stinson said something that is free and makes a big difference is buy-in from parents, such as Betty Crume, who was the mother in with her daughter Thursday.

“She’s at the age that I dropped out at and I don’t want her to make the same mistakes I did,” Crume said of her daughter, Kelley Chandler. “She’ll have to work really hard and strive to graduate on time.

“That’s something we’ll all have to work on.”

Crume said she will help to make sure her daughter is getting good grades, doing her homework and making other efforts.

Chandler said she doesn’t plan on dropping out.

“I want to pursue my dreams,” she said of getting her diploma and starting a modeling career.