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When Daniel P. King came to the Pharr-San Juan-Alamo school district in 2007, the district’s dropout rate was double the Texas state average. Now, it is half the state average.

How did the district do it? Dr. King and his colleagues created a College, Career and Technology Academy to steer dropouts--some as old as 25--back onto a path towards graduation. Not only do those students gain the skills and course credits they need to graduate, they also gain college credit along the way. (See a story about the Academy in our success stories section).

King recently spoke with us about the district’s remarkable success.

Public School Insights: What prompted you to create the College, Career & Technology Academy in the first place?

King: I was entering new into the district. I was moving from a small district to a large district, and I was overwhelmed when I saw that the district had a dropout rate that was twice the state average. The prior year had seen approximately 500 dropouts.

When I asked for an analysis of the 500 dropouts from the previous year I found that not only was there the typical freshman bubble (where students don't make it past the ninth grade, get stuck there and ultimately drop out), but there was [also] a relatively new phenomenon that I call the “twelfth grade bubble, ” [caused by] exit testing and rising standards.

In a small district I had dealt with [the dropout problem] very successfully, simply through personal contact--getting those students to “stick with it.” But in a larger district with several large high schools that were having AYP issues I felt like something different was needed.

As I was looking through [the dropout statistics] I noticed a provision in the state funding, in House Bill 1137. A line had been inserted saying that the state would provide average daily attendance funding for young people up to age 25 for schools to work with them to help them get a high school diploma.

So I started thinking about two problems at once: How would I run a school for young people up to age 25, and what model would work. And as I thought about that I got kind of a “eureka moment.” I felt like that same concept would work for these 200 kids who hadn't finished high school. I came up with the concept of a dual enrollment school for dropout recovery. So I called the college president of the local community college and asked if she’d be willing to meet with me to discuss [plans].

The College, Career & Technology Academy opened in September of 2007 with little over 200 students, ages 18 to 21. In January 2008 we went ahead and opened the doors to anyone up to age 25.

What's mostly worked best for us, we really push dual enrollment [in high school and community college] with these young people. When they first come in to the Academy, we analyze what credits they may still need, what exit tests they need. [W]hat we found works best is that, from August to October, we'll mostly focus on preparing them for their exit tests and some credit recovery. We usually give the first-time students a class at the community college called “College Success.” It's a one-hour credit course that basically orients them to college.

We've got to design something for young people that's going to encourage them to come to school [which is] part of the reason we worked in the dual enrollment. From October to December the college works with us and designs specific “minimesters.” A “minimester” is a compacted three or four week course in which the students attend more hours a week [than a traditional semester course].

While they’re with us, most of the students focus heavily on their skills for their exit tests and credit recovery up until the days when they retake the test, and then the rest of the semester they take classes through the minimester format.

The results come in late November. If they pass their exit [exams] and all that, then they graduate, [and] we try to assist them in transitioning over to the community college. If they didn't make it, then the next semester we start the process over again, looking at what skills they need help with to be able to pass the test, or if they're still missing any credits.

We’ve graduated 368 students. We're anticipating between 100 and 150 graduates in August. If we achieve that, that will put us just over 500 graduates in a two-year period. These are basically dropouts to graduates. Of those, 40-some-odd have been between the ages of 21 and 25, and the rest have been in the 18 to 21 group.

Public School Insights: As you begin to graduate older students, does that then count towards your graduation rate?

King: No… that's one of the things that maybe discourages schools from getting into this business. There's no credit for sticking to it. In other words, if a kid doesn't make it that fourth year and he hangs with you a fifth year and a sixth year and gets his diploma, the school gets no credit with the federal AYP.

Public School Insights: Why do you think that there is a large number of students who are, say, within three credits of graduation but who drop out?

King: It's a combination of things. Recently, with the [emphasis on] exit tests some of the kids, [struggle to] pass their exits. In Texas they'll take their exits in the beginning of the junior year. And then they'll have two or three more shots at it during their senior year. And if, say, they failed their science and their math four times… at the end of the senior year they [might just] give up.

Especially with large high schools, sometimes the administration and counselors are so overwhelmed now, turning to the next group, it gets challenging [to take care of dropouts]. You're talking about over-age kids. The school may or may not be welcoming to a 20-year-old when they've got 14- and 15-year-olds. [Likewise,] the kid may not feel comfortable coming back. He may feel out of place. He may feel embarrassed that he didn't graduate. We expect the kid to fit the school, and the school's not necessarily bending to fit the kid. So you get a struggle.

[For instance,] take a kid who only needs one credit [to graduate]. Well, he may only want to come one period a day, and the school is saying, well, we don't get ADA [Average Daily Attendance] credit unless you're here at least half a day, so we don't get any funding. So the school may not want to deal with that. And … these are older kids [who] probably have a lot of other things going on; they may have a job [or] they may be married.

[To accommodate these needs] we run the program on a split session, half-day basis. We run an 8:00 to 12:00 group and then we run a 12:00 to 4:00 p.m. group. With four hours, we can generate a full day of credit.

The state has begun to allow flexible attendance accounting.

One of the biggest struggles we have with some of the older ones is that sometimes they need more case management than we can afford. Sometimes they have intensive home issues, from family violence to unwanted pregnancy to drugs to mental issues. Some of them still live with their parents.

Public School Insights: Has there been work with the students who are not quite as close to meeting their graduation requirements?

King: A lot of what we're learning in the Academy is informing things we need to do in our regular high school… hitting the problem before instead of after. We're already in the process of organizing our high school into vertical teams,[putting students] in smaller groups.

[We’ve made the] decision at all three high schools to group…freshmen who didn't get enough credit to be sophomores. [We] group them in a temporary grouping--and we call that a “transitional community”--and team them up with a group of teachers who have a goal to get those kids caught up. And then we track and monitor the success of that [effort].

And then we have another grouping for seniors who are either behind on credits or who are really struggling with the exit exams. We group them so that they have the same English teacher, math teacher, social studies teacher, and let's say science teacher, and those four teachers are dedicated to getting those seniors graduated. If they catch up by mid-term, then they move on back into the regular community. We incentivize the teachers who are going to take on these extra challenges with incentive pay. We're [also] bringing in dual enrollment in a big way and making dual enrollment the capstone of all programs, [while] trying to establish career pathways to bring more meaning into high school.

In two years we've brought the average annual dropouts from around 500 to 130 [this past year]. We've cut our dropout by 75 percent. We've increased our number of graduates. [We use] accountability, data management, and tracking, [to know] who these kids are… who's falling behind on credits and attendance. Our dropout rate was double the state average, and now it's half the state average.

It’s multi-faceted. We run a project we call “Countdown to Zero,” and the idea is that the only acceptable number of dropouts is zero. And at our middle schools we've gotten all but one middle school to zero.

When you start holding people accountable it's interesting what happens. Saturdays for the first five or six weeks of the school year [we made] home visits and went out into the neighborhood to track down every single kid who had not returned to school.

Public School Insights: It sounds like a lot of connection into your community.

King: Our school district boundary encompasses three cities, ranging from 20-some-thousand to maybe 60,000 in population. We had all three mayors, all three police chiefs. We literally had dozens of community volunteers going out with us to the homes, knocking on doors and working with parents… convincing parents and kids of the importance of the child enrolling back in school.

In fact, at the College, Career & Technology Academy, the parent liaison makes home visits and works with parents. She came to see me on graduation day and was pointing out this one kid to me. [She] said that he stated to her that the reason he was graduating was because the superintendent went to his house. It [had] sent a message that he was important.

Public School Insights: Do you have connections at all with other kinds of community agencies, like health agencies, that might have an impact on students' attendance in school?

King: We do work with some of the different social agencies. When you get to the young people that have the real serious issues, it just seems sometimes nobody really has the funding.

Texas is not exactly notorious for having a strong social support structure. To the young people [who are] having the serious issues, it gets very, very challenging to find somebody who can really dedicate the kind of time that might be needed to intervene.