In a letter to the Blog he explains that the high school dropout rate has ranged from 3 to 7% over the years
Mingus Union School District Superintendent Mike Wescott
In a letter to the Blog dated August 12, 2022 Mingus Union High School District Superintendent Mike Wescott expressed disappointment after reading the articles in the Blog reporting that there was a 20-25% drop out rate among high school students in Sedona and the Verde Valley. Those figures were contained in Blog stories posted July 10, July 7th and March 29. The information was given to the Yavapai Community College District Governing Board members by administrators from Cottonwood-Oak Creek school district during public meetings held in March and May of this year. The Blog backed up its sources for the stories by including video links to the May and March meetings where the figures were again unequivocally used. (The College has yet to publish the links on the Board website to the May meeting where these figures were used.) Because of the Blog’s concern with accuracy, Superintendent Westcott was able to view the actual presentations by the administrators to the Governing Board using the Blog provided links.
In his letter to the Blog, Superintendent Westcott explained that the use of the 20-25% figure was based on a faulty premise. With the Superintendent’s permission, the Blog is reprinting his letter in full below explaining that the actual dropout rate for years has ranged from 3% to 7% in Sedona and the Verde Valley.
[Friday, August 12, 2022]
Message:
Mr. Oliphant,
I would like to express my disappointment having just viewed the recordings and read the articles detailing the meeting between COCSD’s Verde Tech representatives and the Yavapai College Governing Board regarding the rationale behind the creation of Verde Tech High School.
During the presentation, the dropout rate in the Verde Valley was repeatedly stated to be 20-25%. It appears that the presenters mistakenly confused dropout rate with the result of subtracting graduation rate from 100%, unless they have access to statistics which differ from those produced by ADE or have adopted a different definition of the term.
For your information, the high school dropout rate for us, Camp Verde, and Sedona has been between about 3-7% for several years, sometimes a bit lower, seldom higher. This is typically very similar to the county and state dropout rate, often smaller. The reason the sum of graduation and dropout rate does not equal 100% is that when a student withdraws from high school and graduates from another, they don’t count against our dropout rate, but they do count against our graduation rate. Hence, we often see an annual graduation rate of about 80% with a dropout rate of 5-6%, not 20%.
Of course, we would prefer a higher graduation rate and do all we can to improve it, but the increasingly transient nature of our families makes it difficult to retain each student who enrolls as a freshman until they graduate. We take a bit of comfort knowing that a large majority of those who do withdraw end up graduating from other high schools.
I would submit that your description of local dropout rates as “huge” and “outrageous” confirms the impression left with those in attendance or viewing the video segment but is based upon a faulty premise.
Mike Westcott
Superintendent
Mingus Union High School