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heraldsun.com: printer-friendly story (back] herald -~ sun Students are leaving the city schools The Herald-Sun October 17, 2004 .3:11 pm The "Opening of School Report October 2004" put together by the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools is 69 pages long and chock-full of interesting tidbits about the local district. For instance, on page 39 you can find out that 15 percent more school lunches were eaten at Chapel Hill High than the year before, but 21 percent fewer students availed themselves of the same dining opportunity at Carrboro Elementazy last yeaz. There is information about bus ridership -- Smith Middle School had the highest percentage of bus riders; Scroggs Elementary the lowest -- and about the growth over a decade of the district's exceptional education program. And there, tucked away in a chart on page 8 is the information that since the end of classes last year, 953 students have withdrawn from the city schools, Even without context, in a volume filled with numbers, it's a figure that,jumps out at you. It means around 9 percent of the district's student body -- neazly 1 out of 10 students -- left the school system since last year. But the context, of course, is that this always has been somewhat of a transient community and families do come and go. And around 900 of the students who left went to other public schools. Only 48 withdrew to go to non-public or charter schools. But much of what could be useful context is still missing. Are the overall numbers increasing -- that is, aze proportionally more students withdrawing from the city schools? Administrators think so, but aren't sure. Is the number of students who went to private or charter schools increasing? Why? Are the students who left to go to other public schools withdrawing because of changed family circumstances or because the families prefer other systems? Are the families staying in the azea but shipping their students off to another district? And most importantly, if there's a trend, what can the district do to reverse it? The school system doesn't yet have the answers.. But the district is, at least, beginning to ask the questions. With the series of issues that have bedeviled the district in recent yeazs --possible merger, minority student achievement, gifted education and now high school reform -- Lincoln Center needs to determine quickly if the withdrawals are a reflection of concern, or an anomaly, a coincidence. http://www.heraldsun,com/tools/printfriendly.efm?StoryID=533807 10/18/2004