dropoutprevention.org

Dropout Prevention Site Review

The website www.dropoutprevention.org is a good website at which to begin further research about collaborative educational programs designed to help enrich the educational experiences of students with special needs and keep them in school. Several presentations, including the national NDPC Conference coming in October 2011, and resources addressing students with special needs and ELLs can easily be found in the menu bars on the sides of the Home page for this site. Once you have arrived at the initial portal, you should go to the specially designed section for students with disabilities, http://www.ndpc-sd.org/. This particular section has a lot of current, research-based, information about educational collaboration designed for students with learning disabilities and/or our English Language Learners (ELLs). A special education teacher and./or regular classroom teacher could spend hours going through all of the information on this site. If a teacher took the time to go through the huge amount of research and resources on this site, then he/she would be well equipped in trying to create a classroom and/or educational environment in which a student might feel more comfortable and empowered to take responsibility for his/her own education and chose not to drop out.

This site is maintained through Clemson University's National Dropout Prevention Center/Network as a clearinghouse for recent educational publications, lectures, webcasts, presentations, and books specific to the research, development, and data related to dropout prevention. The site gives its audiences the ability to see, hear, and/or read the presentations that are cited as the research studies on the website. Most of the educational papers include the transcripts as well as the materials for the presentations. This particular site also maintains lists of state, local, parent/student, and community agencies specifically related to the issues of dropout prevention. There is also an extensive list of resources available for dropout prevention and links to dropout prevention programs that are working currently at the national, state, and local levels.

Due to the fact that this site is maintained by a university, it is only natural that its target audience seems to be educators and scholars. The site does include a section for students and parents, but even the language and topics associated with this section are full of educationese. The words, topics, and acronyms are jargon with which educators and scholars are familiar, but the larger community many not be as familiar with these terms and topics. I think the parent/student section would be a great springboard from which to begin conversations about how we: schools, community members, parents, and students can come together to discuss and explore strategies for preventing dropouts and lowering our nation's dropout rates. After all, as many have noted, "It takes a village" to raise healthy, educated children.

The Dropout Prevention Center/Network demonstrates its commitment to this ideal of collaboration in preventing dropouts by including community, state, and local government agencies, parents, students, teachers, and scholars in its discussions and presentations on its website. I believe that this website is worth exploring in further discussions about collaborative efforts in educating "at-risk" students. There are many resources for parents, teachers, and students to use in order to help increase student engagement in the classroom.