Wellston, Mo. (KSDK) - In the Normandy School District Saturday, fifteen teams of school officials and volunteers spent the day visiting the homes of students who have dropped out, or are at risk of dropping out.
Superintendent Dr. Stanton Lawrence said they visited the homes of more than 100 students.
At one home on Woodruff, Lawrence had a conversation with a woman who is the mother of a student school officials are trying to get to return to classes. Lawrence explained he was there to see if they could get her son back in school to graduate.
"Well actually he's decided to go through a GED program," said the boy's mother.
"Did he already make that decision?" asked Lawrence. Every year we reach out to drop-outs. I don't know if he'd be willing to have a conversation or if his mind is already made up."
"I think his mind is made up," said the boy's mother.
Later, Lawrence discussed the successes and failures of the program.
"Our first stop we had a tremendous success," said Lawrence. "In fact we were able to encourage a young man to attend school and resume his education. We've had hits and misses along the way. The next stop was an abandoned house, where the address we had for the student apparently is not a good one."
Streets where school officials visited students' homes include Primrose and Woodruff.
"The stop we just made had a young lady who was apparently being cared for by a great-grandmother. And the student has dropped out of school and moved out. Grandmother felt like she'd done her best and it was more than she could do to try to keep a young person on the correct path."
Lawrence said the three-year-old program is not just a one day effort to get students back in school. For those who return, school officials have resources in place to help students succeed.
"We have organizations like Better Family LIfe, Youth in Need, and I could name a list through St. Louis County Children's Fund," said Lawrence. "What we do is try to determine the issues that the young person is confronted with that caused him or her to drop out. And so we try to link them with resources to support them. For instance, if a young person dropped out because they were behind in their credits, we'll try to get them in a credit-recovery program."
Lawrence said every year, of the students who have returned, one-to-three of them have stayed and persisted to graduate.
"We feel it's so critical for us to reach out to that young person, so we can encourage them, not only to consider returning to school, but whatever issues they're having on top of that to try to consider those properly and hopefully try to get away from anything that is negative or unhealthy."
Lawrence said Normandy officials borrowed the "Expectation Graduation: Reach Out to Drop Outs" program from the Houston, Texas, school district.
KSDK