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Education > High School Dropouts

Reported and Calculated High School Dropouts
Allen County, Indiana

In 2004-05, the reported numbers from the Department of Education suggested that approximately 8-10 percent of Allen County students dropped out of school. Over the past few years, the DOE has been changing they way they count graduates, and with this comes a revised way to look at dropouts. There has long been skepticism about the number of reported dropouts, and locally, there was the 2002 CRI count of graduates based on census information which suggested that the true graduation rate in Allen County was closer to 75-80 percent, and the annual American Community Survey data indicated that “at-risk youth” was probably between 9 and 18 percent.

With the new DOE system of tracking students, 23.5 percent of Indiana students did not graduate in 2006/07. Of these 11.9 percent were either reported dropouts or undetermined. As required by state law, the “non-graduate” category also includes students who earned a General Equivalency Diploma (2.7 percent), a special education certificate (1.0 percent), a non-diploma course completion certificate (0.6 percent) or are still enrolled in school (7.3 percent). There are no statistics at this point to state whether these people eventually receive a diploma or whether they join the ranks of dropouts, or whether they eventually get a GED.

Locally, the new reporting system has changed the graduation rates, and with that there are some implied changes in the number of dropouts. For detailed data on graduation rates and the type of diploma received visit our High School Diplomas and Graduates page.

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Other notes on dropouts: The Amish population generally stops the formal education process after grade 8 (Note: the county grade 1-8 school population was approximately 600 in 2005). This represents approximately 67-75 students who "drop-out", but after the 2002/03 school year, these students are not designated as "drop-outs" because they have a "mobility religious exemption".

NUMBER OF REPORTED DROPOUTS BY SCHOOL
SCHOOL DISTRICT HIGH SCHOOL
00-01
01-02
02-03
03-04
04-05
05-06
06-07
ALLEN CO PUBLIC
EAST ALLEN HARDING
23
23
13
26
12
15
26
  HERITAGE
7
10
10
7
5
9
14
  LEO
3
0
2
3
0
0
6
  NEW HAVEN
21
11
12
26
14
26
31
  WOODLAN
15
5
10
7
8
6
14
FW COMMUNITY ELMHURST
13
18
10
18
28
30
36
  NORTH SIDE
52
61
65
68
63
55
79
  NORTHROP
48
62
65
78
40
59
33
  SNIDER
21
10
12
18
28
38
44
  SOUTH SIDE
46
49
45
53
65
58
70
  WAYNE
23
27
43
35
43
31
37
MSD SW ALLEN HOMESTEAD
15
19
14
17
19
18
30
NW ALLEN CARROLL
7
2
1
3
9
3
4
Total Reported Number of Public School Dropouts
294
297
302
359
334
348
424

Definitions, Sources, and Caveats:

Note: The calculation of Drop-outs begins with 9th grade. The number of students that dropped out in 7th or 8th grade with the year they would have graduated are as follows: 2000/01-7, 2001/02-8, 2002/03-4, 2003/04-8, 2004/05-6, 2005/06-2, and 2006/07-0.
All data is from the Indiana Department of Education Web Site.