By Hannah Guida

It seems like dropout rates have increased on the Farm especially for seniors; however, nationwide dropout levels have dropped.

In 1990 the national dropout rate was 12 percent, but in 2011 the dropout rate was 7 percent, while the statewide rate in 2011 was 3 percent,

In reality, a majority of the kids who leave Wheat Ridge are not actually defined as “dropouts” by Jefferson County District Policy. Some students do not have enough credits to graduate, so they go to an alternative school such as Brady Exploration High School and McClain Community High School or even online schools such as BYU and Provost Academy.

Alternative schools are generally structured slightly differently than a secondary school such as Wheat Ridge. Wheat Ridge has an open campus, and even though our security guards try to keep kids going to class every day, some still manage to ditch. “At Brady, you have to go to classes when you are there, and they are very strict about unexcused absences. It is close to impossible to ditch,” says Morgan Handley, a former senior on the Farm who now goes to Brady but will still walk with the 2014 graduating class through a very specific program.

Brady Exploration High School is the only school that Wheat Ridge High School has an agreement with that students can be dually enrolled in. That means that a student will get a diploma from Brady, but they can walk with Wheat Ridge. District policy says that a student must get their diploma from the school that they have most recently attended.

“Interestingly enough,” principal Griff Wirth says, “colleges do not really care where a student’s diploma is from. The college cares much more about what classes the student has taken and how well they did. The colleges also look at GPA, SAT/ACT scores and letters of recommendation. A college will also look at the clubs and activities that the given student is involved in, whether that be student senate or soccer.”

For WRHS, the 2013 graduation rate was 79 percent whereas the completion rate was 84 percent. Completion rate classifies all the students who go to an alternative school, online, or get their G.E.D.

Wirth says, “This year, we are trying to identify students who are at high risk (of not graduating) and help sooner so that they can be more successful.”