1. Kids drop out for a variety of reasons. The most common is because of personal problems and family
life. These two often overlap as well. This could be anything from living in poverty to losing parents
to not having a place to stay to having kids to take care of. Students also drop out because work and
school is too much for them. There is way too much stress and there isn’t enough time for sleep or
homework or even eating sometimes. It’s too much and school is the only thing that they can drop.
There are also some students who feel that school is not interesting or engaging and so they don’t
go either.
2. The teachers attempt to get the kids to come to school and stay at school. This involves
communicating with the students and helping get them to school when they need it. It also involves
encouraging them to come, going so far as to force them to come. Unfortunately, these methods
are implemented poorly and it comes off negatively. The introduction made it seem like the school
was policing students, almost like a prison. And while the teachers were trying to get the kids to
open up and encourage them to come, it seemed more controlling than caring. Later on in the
documentary it was clearer that the teachers do actually care, but it doesn’t initially come off that
way.
The school also implements something called Apollo 20. Apollo 20 focuses on holding individuals
accountable, adding more time to school, increasing tutoring hours, and keeping track of the kids’
records to try to and find the ones that need help the most. There is also a class dedicated to
teaching students what’s attainable and how to get it, in terms of future goals.
3. To help the students, it would be best to help them when they are younger, before they get too off
track. It’s important to help the older students who may get off track as well, but Middle School
Moment showed that middle school students should be prioritized for stopping drop outs. The
problem is that the main reasons for students dropping out are personal problems and problems
with family life. These are very separate things from the school system. Having a support system at
school would be helpful though. It would require more faculty members to implement properly, but
having faculty that care for the kids, show that they care, and show that they can actually help
would be phenomenal.
Another option that could help would be to change the school system. Currently school is incredibly
stressful and time consuming. This leads to students dropping out. One way to help solve that issue
would be to put less emphasis on homework, making it optional but strongly encouraged. School
can be stressful because of all the pressure to do well and all the work. Doing poorly on homework
can cause one to do poorly in class even if someone knows the material. There are lots of reasons
for not doing homework. It’s important and helps students learn the material, but it’s stressful, time
consuming, and not always necessary. It takes up a lot of time when you total how much there is for
each class, and these students don’t have that time. They have work and clubs and so many things
to do. All of these things only add to the stress. Of course, if a student was doing poorly in a class
that would have to be accounted for. Something like making homework required and possible
required, or at least strongly encouraged, tutoring sessions as well. However, I would still avoid
taking the mandatory homework for a grade because that would just add to the stress.
Another thing that could be done is paring older students with younger students in a mentormentee program. The older students would help the younger students if they were struggling, give
them encouragement, and be a model for them. It would also increase the self-confidence of the
mentors to help others. Having volunteer programs would also help with the self-confidence of
students. Volunteering could count as some sort of extra credit or could be used to make up credit.
Unfortunately, volunteering would take up time so it might not work out well when students have
jobs.
For the students who feel that school is not engaging or interesting, programs could be added to the
school to make it more engaging and interesting. Something similar to Fast Times at Philly High
would be excellent. I would consider making the focus on sustainable challenges and green
inventions though. It would still be applicable and engaging but it would allow for the students to
learn about sustainability and the environmental issues currently in the world. It would also allow
for students to see how they might be able to make a difference.
All of these options would require a lot of work to implement but they would also require a lot of
money. Schools don’t have a lot of money to implement such programs or hire more faculty
members. It would be a huge struggle for them to raise more money.