The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education recently released state dropout rates for 2015.
In 2015, the four-year dropout rate statewide was 5.1%. This means that 5.1% of students who started 9th grade for the first time in 2011 dropped out before they were supposed to graduated in 2015. In Lynn, the four-year dropout rate was more than twice the state's rate at 12.9%. Compared to 2011, however, the dropout rate in Lynn is down 10%. The Class of 2015 consisted of 943 students, including those who transferred in to an LPS high school and subtracting those who transferred out; this would the total number of students who dropped out from that class at approximately 122.
In addition to the four-year dropout rate, the state also reports the annual dropout rate. The annual dropout rate is the percentage of students in any grade 9 through 12 that dropout during the school year and do not re-enroll in school by October 1st of the following school year.
Statewide, 1.9% of students in grades 9-12 dropped out during the 2014-15 school year; the annual dropout rate in Lynn was 3.8%. Lynn had the 28th highest annual dropout rate at the district level for the 2014-15 school year.
To put the annual dropout rate in actual numbers, the 3.8% dropout rate from 2015 equaled 157 students.
Two-thirds of the students who dropped out in 2015 were male. Additionally, 112 of the 157 dropouts were Hispanic/Latino (71.3%). It would be beneficial to know how many students fell into more than one subgroup as students with disabilities made up 27.3% and Limited English Proficiency 36.3% of those who dropped out last year.
At the individual school level, the number of dropouts varied with nearly half coming from Lynn Classical (72).
Lynn Tech has steadily decreased its number of dropouts from 35 in 2010-11, to 33, then 30, 14 and finally 10 during last school year.
Below are the dropout rates for the Commissioner's ten urban districts.
Both Lowell and Worcester had annual dropout rates lower than the state level.
All data from:
www.doe.mass.edu
