31 dropouts return after U-46 leader's letter

Thirty-one Elgin Area School District U-46 high school dropouts have returned to class, district officials announced Monday.

Larkin High School saw 10 students - the largest number of returning dropouts - come back, officials said. Elgin and Streamwood High each welcomed seven students; Bartlett and South Elgin High three apiece.

One student moved to another district and re-enrolled there.

Six of the 31 students returning are under the age of 18. The other 25 are 18 or older, and no longer legally required to attend school, district spokesman Tony Sanders said.

In mid-August, Superintendent Jose Torres sent letters to the 46 students under 18 who notified their schools they would not be returning this academic year.

In the letter, Torres pointed to the financial benefits of staying in school. "A high school graduate will earn hundreds of thousands of dollars more in his or her lifetime than a student who did not complete high school," he wrote.

Sanders said Monday that he did not have a count of the total number of dropouts in the district over the age of 18. "The list of students who are 18 and older (that dropped out) is longer," he said.

Fight Crime: Invest in Kids, a national organization of law enforcement officials and former crime victims, Aug. 20 released a report that claims increasing high school graduation rates by 10 percentage points would prevent 150 murders and more than 8,000 aggravated assaults in Illinois each year.

The study found that high school dropouts are three and a half times more likely than graduates to be arrested and eight times more likely to be incarcerated.

According to 2007 state report cards, 3.8 percent of U-46's 11,140 high school students dropped out before graduating.

The state average is 3.5 percent.

Torres said he was surprised by the number of students who returned.

"I was at a United Way campaign (event) last week, where they talked about how people don't give if they're not asked," Torres said.

"Maybe that's the same here."

Steve Klein, the district's director of student services, has met with high school deans to develop individual plans for each returning student, Torres said.

He also plans to send a follow-up letter to remaining dropouts about their educational options, including getting their GED.

"Kids make rash judgments sometimes," Torres said. "

We can't let them go that easy."