Over the past four years the number of graduating students from
Bradford Area High School has risen 10 percent. This improvement
can be attributed to many different changes including paying closer
attention to students’ needs.

The graduation rate for the 2001-02 school year was 76 percent
and for 2004-05, the rate is shown at 87 percent.

“There has been a lot of attention given to attendance,” said
Superintendent Sandra Romanowski. “If you aren’t here, you can’t
succeed.”

In June of 2003, it was reported that 50 of 69 students who
dropped out were withdrawn because of lack of attendance.

In October of that year, Dr. Daniel Hudson, former principal of
the high school, took the time to contact and send letters to the
students to ask them what they were doing since leaving school. In
most cases, he found those students weren’t doing much of
anything.

Some time after that, 42 of the students returned to school.
While some maintained the same behavior, others benefited from this
effort.

These days, Romanowski attributes the help of a specialist from
Drug and Alcohol Services as a positive step forward in getting the
kids back in school.

But that is not all, she said. Just taking the time to find out
what a student is thinking, why they might be discouraged from
completing high school to achieve a degree is the biggest change
that has been made in attempting to change the amount of
dropouts.

If a student makes it known they are thinking of dropping out,
they have to first begin a process that includes talking with their
high school counselor and Principal Ken Coffman, and then if they
are still committed to leaving the school system, they must meet
with Romanowski.

While meeting with Romanowski, they are asked to describe what
they have seen and experienced from the first day they attended
school until that moment.

“In the past, it was too easy for a student to drop out,” said
Romanowski. “Nobody was looking to see what we could do to help. If
a child drops out, it means we are unsuccessful, but we need to
know why/what we need to do to keep the students in school.”

Coffman added the Time After School for Kids (TASK) Program has
been helping students to get to graduation day as well.

The TASK program is an 18-week course that can hold between 15
and 22 students to meet during evening hours to learn core subjects
such as math, English, science, social studies and physical
education while behavioral counseling is also available.

Coffman said the TASK program is a success because it helps
those students who have problems with time constraints as well as
helping those who can benefit from smaller class sizes. It helps
those that don’t seem to be making it in the traditional way.

“In a lot of cases, it gives them positive reinforcement and
helps them feel good about themselves again,” said Coffman.

Romanowski explains that many students may feel successful in
elementary school and in middle school, begin to struggle.

“In ninth grade they don’t understand what is going on. So it is
not only about academics and behavior,” said Romanowski. “We need
to learn their patterns and see what we could have done better.

“The attention given to students is making a difference,” she
added. “We need to figure out why they got there.”

Even if the students do drop out of school, officials say they
offer to pay the cost of the GED as long as they do so within two
months. In this case, the district is taking one more step in
providing the students with some sort of direction, said
Coffman.

“Even if we can’t talk them into staying and finishing then at
least we are helping,” he said.

He adds that the work of Children and Youth Services have helped
as well.

“We let them know early on if a child seems to be missing school
more,” said Coffman. “Then they contact them.”

Instructional support teaching also gets attention in helping
see more students to graduation day. The need to have an IST work
in the high school as well as the elementary and middle schools
first came up in 2003 and is now in practice.

“It can be difficult to pinpoint what is wrong and we have a
long way to go,” said Romanowski. “But we can learn from the kids
what works and what doesn’t work. We need to ask if we can fix and
change something and then to find out how.”