Lynn Attrition Rates 2012-13

The attrition rate refers to the percentage of students who leave a particular school or school district from the end of one school year to the beginning of the next. Here we look at the attrition rate for public schools in Lynn.

From the end of the 2011-12 school to the beginning of the 2012-13 school year 5.4% of students who were enrolled in a Lynn public school left the district; at KIPP Academy Lynn Charter School, the attrition overall was also 5.4%. Below is a graph indicating the attrition rate by grade level for grades 1 - 11 for both LPS and KIPP (*KIPP currently only enrolls students in grades 5 - 10).

 

The table indicates that for the Lynn public school district, the highest attrition rate is at the 4th grade level after which 12.2% of students leave before entering the 5th grade within the district. At KIPP, the highest attrition rate is after the 8th grade when 10.1% of students leave before entering the 9th grade.

At the individual school level within LPS, attrition rates ranged from 4.1% (Lincoln-Thomson) to 27.5% (Cobbet). Of the elementary schools, Cobbet had the highest attrition rate; Marshall had the highest attrition rate at the middle school level and Lynn English at the high school level.

The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education also tracks the attrition rate for schools and districts by individual subgroup. Below are the attrition rates by subgroup for LPS.

For the most part, the attrition rates across subgroups were very similar. The subgroup with the highest overall attrition rate was the African American/Black subgroup at 7.3%. Attrition rates by subgroup ranged from 3.4% to 7.6%.

Attrition rates by both subgroup and grade varied. While African American students had a 7.6% attrition rate overall, at the 4th grade level attrition was 26.4%. For nearly all of the subgroups listed here, there was an uptick in the attrition rate in the 4th grade with double digit attrition rates in 9 of the 11 categories.

Here we look at KIPP's attrition rates by subgroup.

 

KIPP's attrition rates at the subgroup level ranged from 2.6% to 16.7% with White students having the highest attrition of all the subgroups. Males and females had nearly identical attrition rates similar to the Lynn public school district while race/ethnicity subgroups differed considerably. While Hispanic/Latino students had a 0% attrition rate at the 5th grade level, White students had a 20% attrition rate and African American students a 3.7% attrition rate (there was too small of a sample size to collect data for Asian students at this level).

From the 2011-12 to the 2012-13 school year, LPS's enrollment went from 13,731 students to 14,139; KIPP, which is in the process of adding a new grade each year until it reaches grade 12, went from 466 students in grades 5- 9 to 569 students in grades 5 - 10.

Given that there is also an intake rate and that LPS is experiencing issues with overcrowding, do you think attrition is an issue for public schools in Lynn?

All data taken from: www.doe.mass.edu