More than talk needed to address the problem
OUR VIEWS:High school dropouts

The Oklahoman Editorial

Published: December 1, 2008

HIGH school was Korean Washington’s playground. Washington would pick and choose which classes he’d attend. He’d visit other classes. Or just wander the halls. He even got in trouble for gambling.

Suspensions didn’t improve his behavior. So he just left. Even his mother told him he should just drop out if he was just going to make trouble. One semester into his junior year, Washington walked out of Douglass High School with no plans to return. He became a statistic.

Washington was one of thousands of Oklahoma students to drop out of high school last year. His advice to his fellow dropouts? Go back to school.

Washington worked at McDonald’s and a telemarketing firm. He even got his GED. But he missed his friends and the prom and even the school’s mock trial program. Stupid, he isn’t. He knew that getting his GED was not the same as having his diploma. Not even close. And two of his former teachers involved in the mock trial program kept prodding him to come back.

"You feel like you’ll have more freedom,” Washington said in a recent interview. "But it’s really not spectacular. It’s really nothing to get excited about it.”

Returning to Douglass wasn’t easy. Washington’s mom wasn’t a fan of the idea, he said. And before dropping out, he hadn’t seen eye to eye with the school’s new principal, Brian Staples. He had floated through school his freshmen and sophomore years before Staples arrived. Staples, a longtime Oklahoma City Public Schools administrator, cracked down on lax rules enforcement. And he wasn’t much interested in letting a known troublemaker back in only to create more problems.

But the two teachers who kept in touch with Washington — Lance Cudjoe and Don Smitherman — lobbied hard on Washington’s behalf. Eventually, Staples relented. And he hasn’t regretted it.

Washington’s going to class and staying out of trouble. Still, he isn’t likely to graduate with his class come spring. He blew off too many classes and missed a semester of school work. But he’s looking to take night classes or summer school and do what he needs to make sure he finishes, whatever the timetable.

He’s grateful for Cudjoe and Smitherman, who didn’t just let him disappear and to Staples for a second chance.

Staples can’t go in to too much detail about Washington’s history. But he’s been a principal long enough to have seen many similar stories and knows it’s critical to do more than just talk about dropouts. The stakes are high. "For some kids,” he said, "our school is the best situation they’ve got.”

Your thoughts!