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Schools have a new forbidden term: 'drop out'

 
Published Oct. 22, 2014

The Pinellas County school system would like to stop saying "drop out."

It's negative, it carries a stigma, and some parents object when they get contacted by the district's Dropout Prevention department and their children haven't, in fact, dropped out.

A new "catchy phrase" has been put in its place, area superintendent Barbara Hires told the School Board on Tuesday. Dropout Prevention is now called Educational Alternative Services.

If the name doesn't seem all that catchy, remember it's a school system, where people communicate using acronyms and education-speak. For example, there's ELL (English language learners) and ESE (exceptional student education) and STEM (science, technology, engineering and math). Even Dropout Prevention was known as DOP.

Hires said the district is updating its brochures and websites with the re-branding effort.

"This is a positive thing for students," she said.

The change may be something of a trend. In Hillsborough County, dropout prevention specialists were renamed "success coaches" before the school year began.

"We're trying to shift this from dropout prevention, which is a negative kind of thing, to success," superintendent MaryEllen Elia said when she announced the change in July.

At each of 52 middle and high schools, "success teams" of administrators, teachers and counselors are focusing on groups of 100 at-risk students.

In Pinellas, superintendent Mike Grego said the district will still use the term "drop out" in some communications with the state Department of Education, which every year calculates drop out rates. But district employees will avoid the term when talking to students and families.

The department of education does use "drop out," but it also steers clear of the negative in some cases. Students who have been held back a grade often are called "non-promotions," not "retentions."

Times staff writer Marlene Sokol contributed to this report.