Terry Grier, superintendent of 71,000-student Guilford County, N.C., Schools (which serves Greensboro/High Point), doesn’t claim to have solved the dropout problem, but he is making headway–and earning national attention for his efforts.
Grier, EdD’83, has made keeping students in school his top priority, instituting a number of innovative dropout-prevention programs that are being duplicated across the country. Since he joined GCS in 2000, the district’s annual dropout rate has fallen from around 6 percent to less than 3 percent. Guilford’s dropout numbers are some of the best among big-city school systems in the country. “It’s that way because we focus on it,” Grier says.
The cornerstone of Grier’s dropout-prevention efforts is “middle college” high schools. Located on college campuses, the middle colleges are small–100 to 150 students. They target students who are in danger of dropping out, either because they are struggling academically or because they don’t fit in socially at traditional high schools. Middle colleges offer far more personal attention and intimacy than a large high school: Staff members know every student by name, and if a student is absent, the teachers notice. Enrollment is voluntary, but the concept has been so successful that Guilford County has a waiting list for its six middle colleges.
“The feedback that school board members get about the middle colleges from parents has been amazing,” says Grier, who was named North Carolina Superintendent of the Year last November. In 2005 the National Dropout Prevention Center presented GCS with its Crystal Star Award of Excellence in Dropout Recovery.
Other North Carolina districts have created middle colleges after seeing Guilford’s success. School officials from as far away as the United Kingdom have visited the campuses to learn more.
Grier has also instituted an “all hands on deck” dropout recovery program at the beginning of each school year. Additionally, the district focuses on students who are failing and at risk of dropping out by offering them intensive tutoring and the chance to make up credits and graduate on time with their peers. For high school students who work during the day, Guilford offers evening classes.
Not all of Grier’s ideas have been universally embraced. Critics, including some parents and school board members, have said the superintendent’s dizzying array of new programs and changes undermine schools’ stability. But Margaret Arbuckle, executive director of the Guilford Education Alliance, an independent, nonprofit group that promotes education initiatives, says Grier deserves credit for his success in keeping more kids in school.
“There is increased attention to changing the community culture from one where it was OK to drop out of school…to a community culture that expects students to be ready to enter the 21st-century workforce.”
~ Margaret Arbuckle
“There is increased attention to changing the community culture from one where it was OK to drop out of school…to a community culture that expects students to be ready to enter the 21st-century workforce,” Arbuckle says.
Grier credits Vanderbilt with “transforming my career in education. When I got my doctorate from Vanderbilt, it paid for itself five times over.” He has held superintendent jobs in Texas, South Carolina, California and Ohio.
The current school year is Grier’s last in North Carolina. In January he accepted the job of superintendent of the San Diego Unified School District. The school system there is the second largest in California, and nearly twice the size of the one he leaves.
San Diego’s student population comprises more than 15 ethnic groups and more than 60 languages and dialects. It includes a large number of low-income students who speak English as a second language.
Dropout prevention, he says, will remain at the top of his to-do list. “I think this is our most important work.”