Enquirer / March 10, 2022
The decision to quit school costs neighborhoods, too. The Enquirer’s analysis found high rates of adult dropouts often were accompanied not only by poverty, but by low rates of home ownership and health insurance coverage.
They also create a problem that’s harder to measure: A culture that accepts dropping out as a viable
choice.
In Lower Price Hill, the battle against that generational challenge begins at Oyler, a K-12 school that was rebuilt and reimagined a decade ago as a “community learning center.” The goal was to make it a neighborhood hub for both students and parents.
Children go there not just for an education, but also for vision and dental care, meals, tutoring, recreation and counseling. They also are reminded constantly that graduation is now an expectation.
“You have to change the narrative,” said Amy Randolph, Oyler’s former principal and the current director of innovation and partners at CPS.
“We followed every student, one on one,” said Randolph. “We started making strategic decisions, really focusing on the students at a really microscopic level.”
The holistic approach appears to be making an impact. Graduation rates that hovered around 30% a decade ago now top 90%.
Oyler’s graduation day has become a neighborhood celebration. Its partnerships with colleges allow kids to visit campuses they otherwise wouldn’t see. And its students talk not just about high school, but about college scholarships and careers.
“It’s going in the right direction,” Kamine said of Lower Price Hill.
A few years ago, Kamine said, she met the father of another promising student at another community meeting in Lower Price Hill. The conversation could not have been more different than the one she’d had two decades earlier.
The man’s daughter, after excelling for years at Oyler, graduated from high school and went on to college. When Kamine asked what he thought she’d do next, the girl’s father didn’t hesitate.
He told Kamine he thought she’d pursue a PhD, or maybe go to law school.
Almost anything seemed possible.
https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2022/03/10/poorest-neighborhoods-most-high-school-dropouts/6653445001/
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