Some student out of country are considered dropouts

Published: February 26, 2012 Comment on this article

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Attendence advocates for U.S. Grant High School address issue

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One of the dropout challenges Principal Tamie Sanders faces is the number of students who leave U.S. Grant High School and return to Mexico.

About half of the population in Grant's ZIP code is of Mexican descent, according to the U.S. Census.

In Oklahoma, students who leave the country are considered dropouts if school officials cannot prove they're attending school in their new home, even if it's outside of the United States, Sanders said.

Not all states count dropouts that way, Sanders said. For example, in Texas, students who leave the country are not counted as dropouts, regardless of whether they enroll in school in their new country, she said.

Several students from U.S. Grant who've returned to Mexico with their families aren't in school because of drug war violence, Sanders said. Others simply cannot be tracked down.