well last year Florida's high school
graduation rate hit a 14-year high with
more than 80 percent of the 2017 class
earning a diploma in four years but for
whatever reason high school dropouts do
tend to happen and that's why the Orange
County School District is helping with
those dropouts and helping them get
diploma so we'd like to welcome back to
the show
Orange County Schools Superintendent dr.
Barbara Jenkins dr. Jenkins thank you
for being here with us and I know you
had a big weekend you went out and
visited some homes on Saturday how do we
did we call an expectation graduation it
went very well we've actually been doing
this since 2013 and so what we do is
actually go door-to-door and knock on
some doors where we know students reside
that haven't shown up come back to
school yet and we ask them to give us
another chance to help them reach
success their lives will be impacted
significantly if they will finish high
school and sometimes all it takes is a
second adult giving them that message
and showing them how close they might
actually be to graduation and so we've
done that with some success about two
and four students have been recovered
back into our system since 2013 and 72
have actually graduated already the
others are still in the pipeline but
we're very excited because we know it's
impacting their future significantly yes
and you know there are options other
than you know just going back to
traditional school and then going to a
traditional four-year college so this
kind of opens their eyes to some of
those other options as well absolutely
we can send them to Orange Technical
College where they can finish their high
school diploma and then get an industry
certification with pretty high paying
jobs and the technical fields that we
offer they can get their GED or they can
do some online courses all of which we
offer in our traditional high schools
which by the way we beat the state
average we were at 85 percent graduation
rate for all of our programs and 94
percent in our traditional high schools
that's incredible
do you find that many are surprised to
learn that you know the road back may
not be as hard or as intimidating if
they thought absolutely Bridgette what
we take with us we have counselors and a
principals usually on my team in the car
that I'm in other schools have
administrators and counselors as well on
their teams and back at the school
through social media we get a lot of
inquiries back at the schools and at our
orange Technical College campuses as
well we
have printouts usually that say here's
what you're missing here's how much you
would need to finish and they're usually
surprised like mine that doesn't seem so
hard parents are always encouraging they
want us to talk to the student we
usually try to catch the student by
surprise but when they see the data and
it may be Bridget that they've been
concerned because they have to work we
have programs that will accommodate that
if a young girl has had an unexpected
pregnancy we have wonderful programs and
accommodations for that as well if
they're close we just want to convince
them give us another chance to help you
make it across that finish line so you
also do it you do door to door you also
do some celebration visits as well you
totally absolutely so we so while we're
out on that Saturday we stopped by a few
homes just to wake up some young people
to say you know what your score last
year on the Florida standards exam was
the highest possible you got a level
five in science and we were looking at
your GPA and we want you to know how
proud we are of you but we're gonna keep
watching you because you're capable of
so much the sky's the limit for your
future so for some ninth graders that
was a shock on their Saturday morning
don't have the superintendent or a
principal coming to say we are watching
you this is fantastic and we know you're
going to do great things
why are those celebration visits
important to you no because we want to
make sure people understand our
community understands we serve two
hundred thirteen thousand students and
they are a broad spectrum from nearly
two hundred country they speak so many
different languages and dialects we want
to serve every one of them and an
individual pathway to success for each
individual student is what we're after
and so if they are pushing the top of
the limit academically we're going to
keep pushing them if they're struggling
we're going to help them reach success
as well so what can we do and we know
someone maybe didn't finish and maybe
miss this weekend what's the next step
what can they do so I think I am quite
certain of Julie Candice and Bridget
have social media that if you would
consider putting out tweets around that
notion we had a significant social media
campaign where we had folks we've been
out of school six seven years saying I'd
like to go back and get my GED I'd like
to get an industry certification I'm
telling you a welder can make close to
$80,000 and that's through Orange
Technical College and so we put out a
huge media camp
both on online media and social media if
you'd help us put that word out all they
have to do is call our main line 407 307
3200 will put them in touch with
counselors that will get them back on
track or they can go to their local high
school to ask questions or to any one of
our orange Technical College campuses
doesn't matter your age we have programs
for adults as well we can get you
restarted and get you on track for a
bright future and some I mean and
sometimes just you know having a list of
this is all you need to graduate you
know I mean some might be just two or
three classes away and it just seems
like such a feat to to accomplish but
really I mean you can get that done and
with all the different resources
absolutely it's you can keep your
full-time job and we'll get you past
that finish line it is critical and
we're here to help and so what does
Orange County doing to kind of help
prevent school dropouts because you know
there's also the preventative measures
as well absolutely that's why I
mentioned our graduation rate it's
nearly 94% in our traditional high
schools we have other pathways for
students as well those graduation rates
continue to climb because we will
individualize and customize what each
student needs we have online courses
Florida Virtual School Orange Technical
College all of our pathways we can get
students to success and we have
counselors in every high school that
will help customize those pathways we're
very proud of those students who have
come back and look look forward to
serving more yeah it has to feel really
good to get such a great response we are
thrilled but there's room for more okay