Kingsburg Joint Union High School District is one of a few above-the-norm districts in Fresno County, according to recent reports from the California Department of Education. Kingsburg High School and its alternative education school have uncharacteristically low high school dropout rates, a fact that only few districts can claim. The reports, released in late September, are the first of annual reports that will more accurately track students as they shift schools. The state department of education uses a program called DataQuest to follow students. The statewide graduation rate rose from a July preliminary report to 67.7 percent while the dropout rate went down three points to 21.5 percent for the school year ending in 2007.

Kingsburg Joint Union High School District is a major anomaly in Fresno County and the state. For Kingsburg in the same time span, only 6.2 percent of high school students did not graduate. Superintendent Linda Clark said the district works with students to encourage graduation and success. Clark stresses student activities.

“We don't want the students to become disenfranchised and not connected to activities, teachers and people,” Clark said.

She also said that the high school exit exam has changed the field.

“The high school exit exam is a new component in the past five or six years,” Clark said. “Certain students can get discouraged because the test seems insurmountable.”

The statewide and the countywide rates are vastly higher than Kingsburg's rate. The countywide rate is higher than the statewide rate of 21.5 percent. The countywide rate is 25.8 percent.

Kingsburg High had an adjusted count of 18 dropouts.

However, it is difficult to compare results with previous years because the reporting was on a different scale.

According to the state department of education, the 2006-2007 dropout rate cannot be compared to the current dropout rates because the rates were derived “using only aggregate data of enrollment and dropouts collected annually through the California Basic Educational Data System.”

Keric Ashley, director of Data Management Division for the state department of education said while the data is new and will not be completely understood until 2010, the data is very helpful.

“The districts are compiling this data for the first time so it took a bit longer to get the results out,” Ashley said. “The next bunch will be coming out in March.”

Continuation schools also contribute to the dropout rate.

“In general, there should be balance between high schools and continuation schools,” Ashley said. “High schools can send students to continuation schools for one last chance, whereas if a student drops out of continuation school, they're probably not going to go back. That balances out the district rate.”

Once the four-year rates are compiled, the analysis should be much clearer. Kingsburg Joint Union High School District's low rate combines all schools that have high school age students. In this case, it is Kingsburg High and the alternative education school.

Interventions and the alternative education have helped, and Clark said the staff gives a lot of extra time.

Kingsburg High Principal Randy Morris said the community and stability have created a positive atmosphere.

“We have low mobility in our school,” Morris said. “Not a lot of people are going in and out. Our enrollment is stable.”

As a school, Kingsburg High tries to stay ahead of the rates. Morris said there are programs to get diplomas in the hands of his students who fall behind. The school closely monitors grades from the first quarter of each students' freshman year.

The current dropout and graduation rates are part of a new system, but the Kingsburg has had low rates consistently throughout the past 15 years. Only a few years in the late 1990s had drastically higher rates.

All states have been ordered by the federal government to provide the four-year derived dropout rates for the current system, in its first year.

The high school and the community are very intertwined and the support goes both ways.

Morris wants Kingsburg High to stay on top and he regularly meets with other principals to talk about problems and solutions. Morris doesn't want to lose any student, but he knows it happens. The community support system helps Kingsburg High to have low dropouts.

“The community is stable, which makes us stable,” Morris said.

The state dropout results are somewhat preliminary, since this was the first year that such a report and database has been compiled in the current format. Before, the state department of education did not use a system to track every single individual. The department still has issues with lost transfers, or students that indicate they are transferring but never are reported as enrolling.

Previously, if a student left for another district in the middle of the year, it was considered a dropout. Now, with Statewide Student Identifiers, the state can determine if the student did indeed enroll in another California school.

If the student does not register in California, the schools and districts are motivated to find out what happened to the student.