Nearly one in four Stanislaus County high school students recently dropped out, about the same as the state average, according to data released Wednesday by the California Department of Education.
In the county, 23.6 percent of high school students dropped out. The state dropout rate comes in a little higher at 24.2 percent.
The rate is an estimate of the percentage of students who dropped out in a four-year pe-riod based on data from 2006-07, the most recent year available.
"That 24.2 percent represents a tremendous loss of potential," State Superintendent Jack O'Connell said during a phone conference.
Stanislaus County Superintendent Tom Changnon is dismayed at the large numbers of dropouts, saying school officials "need to make the work in high school more relevant so students want to stay in school. We also need to develop relationships with students so they feel there is someone in the school environment who cares about them."
Other dropout trends:
Hughson High School had the lowest four-year estimated dropout rate for comprehensive high schools (not including alternative or continuation schools) in the county at 4.1 percent.
Downey High School in Modesto had the highest drop-out rate for comprehensive schools at 16.8 percent.
Students learning the Eng-lish language and those who come from low-income families drop out at higher rates than the rest of the population. In Stanislaus County, 24.2 percent of Eng-lish learners drop out, as do 27.2 percent of low-income students.
Minorities have higher drop-out rates than whites: Nearly 32 percent of black students in Stanislaus County dropped out (42 percent across California) and 28.3 percent of Latinos in the county (30.3 percent in California). The numbers for white students are 18.7 percent in the county and 15.2 percent for the state.
O'Connell referred to the achievement gap as real, stark and a crisis.
Wednesday's release marks the first time California schools are tracking students based on identification numbers assigned to each individual. Past calculations were more a product of guessswork, O'Connell said.
Under the new system, students are assigned one of 28 "withdrawal codes" indicating whether each student graduated, dropped out, withdrew, left the state or country, died, or completed his or her education in other ways.
Educators hope the new way of tracking dropouts will more accurately tell who's not finishing school and why so officials can better target intervention programs to ensure everyone completes high school.
Of the 28 categories of withdrawal, most who do so in Stanislaus County schools are transferring to another school in the state.
Modesto City Schools officials started analyzing the data Wednesday. Associate Superintendent Craig Rydquist said the district's high schools fall in the middle when compared with large districts in the valley.
"It points out that we really have an issue and a need for alternative programs," he said.
For example, Beyer High School is starting an "advanced pathways academy" this fall in which students in small groups learn on computers, a way to fill the needs of all students, Ryd-quist said.
Ceres Unified School District spokesman Jay Simmonds said the statistics underscore how important transition years are, when students move from elementary to middle schools or from middle schools to high schools. The district is focusing on special transition classes as well as finding mentors for students.
"Students start dropping out of school in fifth and sixth grade. It's a slow progression," Simmonds said. He added that quitting school isn't about a student's intelligence.
"It's about their skill level. They get disconnected at an early age, they fall behind and they give up."
After four years of the statewide student ID number, state officials will have an accurate four-year drop-out rate instead of the one used today that's based on 2006-07 numbers.
Because school districts submit data to the state, educators acknowledge that the numbers can be manipulated so districts appear to be graduating more students than they are -- to look good, but also to minimize any federal No Child Left Behind sanctions that might be imposed on school districts with low graduation rates.
But the same educators noted that it's harder for districts to fib under a system that gives detailed information about why students are no longer attending their schools.
Bee staff writer Michelle Hatfield can be reached at mhatfield@modbee.com or 578-2339.
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