After their first year at Carroll County high schools, graduation coaches have helped to increase the graduation rates of at-risk students, according to school officials.

In fall 2006, the state gave each of its 385 public high schools the opportunity to hire one graduation coach and provide them with training. The coaches, who were championed by Gov. Sunny Perdue, are responsible for identifying and helping at-risk students who are on track to drop out of school. The coaches’ ultimate goal is to help them graduate.

Six graduation coaches are based at five different Carroll County high schools (Central High has two part-time coaches). According to Karen Suddeth, director of instruction for middle and high schools, one of the coaches’ primary responsibilities is to set short- and long-term goals for the students they help, as well as follow up with the students all throughout the year.

“We put them in the schools because we certainly need that type of support in our high schools to assist and improve our graduation and completion rate,” Suddeth said. “It’s an additional resource for our students.”

Although the figures are not available yet on 2006-07 graduation rates, Suddeth said that hiring these coaches has increased the system’s graduation rate for at-risk students. The county is interested in bringing on more coaches, who would work in the middle schools preparing students for high school life.

“It does appear that it has made a very positive impact on our system,” she said. “And as a result, we are very interested in possibly adding coaches to our middle schools, who will help students transition from elementary to middle and from middle to high school.”

Carrollton High School has one graduation coach on hand, Aprill Jones-Byrd. Dr. Kent Edwards, the principal of CHS, said his office is still compiling the graduation rate numbers, but he is confident that Jones-Byrd’s high level of involvement with the students -- particularly with seniors -- has helped to raise the graduation rate.

“We don’t have the numbers yet,” said Edwards. “But I would guess it’s probably about a 35 percent reduction in the number of seniors who did not finish (their class credits) and had to go to summer school.”

Edwards said Jones-Byrd has made an impact and the school will continue keeping the graduation coach program. He believes that the graduation rate will get even better since many of Jones-Byrd’s techniques are preemptive.

“If you look at the dropouts or the people who are not completing high school, that erosion really begins to occur their freshmen year when they start getting behind,” he said. “You know, they fail two or three classes, and then they’re really second-year freshmen, and they’re third-year sophomores. (Jones-Byrd) really tried to be preemptive and pro-active. A lot of her strategies were to help those younger students, so they didn’t get so far behind that they’d give up.”

According to the Georgia Department of Education, the graduation rate at Carrollton High School has increased in the past two years. Last school year, 75 percent of students received diplomas; two years ago, only 71.2 percent did. The high school dropout rate has decreased, too. In 2004-05, the rate was at 3.4 percent; in 2005-06, the rate was at 2.4 percent.

Carroll County’s graduation rate for the 2005-06 school year stood at 65 percent, with 855 students receiving diplomas. That rate is up from the previous year, when 62.7 percent graduated. However, dropout among high school students increased during that same period. In 2004-05, 5.8 percent of the high school population quit school; in 2005-2006, that rate jumped to 6.5 percent.

Suddeth also expressed her interest in keeping the graduation coach program and said that the system has filed a letter with the state for the program’s continuation next academic year.