JTHS Success Rates Increasing

While the graduation rate for seniors at has gone down from 96.2 percent in 2010 to 89.2 percent in 2011, it’s not because more kids are failing or dropping out, said high school principal Karl Mundi.

“The change in the graduation rate comes from the way the state calculates the number, “ he explained.

The way the state used to calculate the number is that if a student disappeared from the district somehow without transferring records, it was like that student was never there. Now, if a student leaves the district without formally transferring or leaving a forwarding address, they are considered a drop-out.

“It doesn’t happen often, but sometimes a student will leave the district, and we have no idea where they’ve gone,” Mundi said. “On occasion we have to track people down because they will say one thing when they are leaving but their plans change. We have to follow up with them.”

However, that still leaves students who drop out or fail too many classes to graduate, a dilemma that Mundi said has been a problem in the past and that the district is working hard to solve.

“About three years ago, we had 10 percent of the student population failing one or more classes,” Mundi said.

Now, if a student is failing classes, they are required to attend the high school’s academic support center.

“Instead of just saying they should go, we require them to go,” Mundi said. “We monitor their attendance and progress in the center.”

In addition, the school offers an after-school tutoring program that includes one teacher and two National Honor Society members staying after school each day to tutor students in various subjects.

The extra help has worked, according to Mundi. Each year the school checks passing rates after the second marking period. The statistics Mundi presented are encouraging.

In 201-2011 at the end of the second marking period, 13 percent of freshmen had failed world history. At the end of the second marking period of 2011-2012, only two percent were failing.

The number went from 10.4 percent to 3.2 percent for the same period in Algebra I, 13.8 percent to four percent in Algebra II and 10.4 percent to 2.6 percent in chemistry.

The school is also working toward helping with some of the other reasons Mundi sees as drop-out causes, one of the biggest of which he thinks is substance abuse.

“The most prominent reason for failing or dropping out of high school seems to be substance abuse because it tends to undercut every other piece of the education process,” Mundi said. “It affects performance, attendance and social status.

“We do what we can to get students help for substance abuse issues,” he continued. “Sometimes they get help, come back into the fold and do well, but other times, it’s not that easy.”

If it becomes apparent that a student is not going to complete the traditional high school course of study, the district offers a number of other options.

“One thing we encourage them to look at is New Bridge 70001, a county program that is an alternative high school,” Mundi said. “They give credit for work experience, they can get students custom-designed into a career.”

There are also a number of GED (general education development) programs available in the county, as well as the Morris Hills Adult High School program, Mundi added.