Senators discuss compulsory education, dropout rates

This bill and others are based on findings by a legislative interim committee. One in four West Virginians does not graduate high school, and dropouts are more likely to be incarcerated than high school graduates.

The bill introduced Tuesday by Sen. Majority Leader Truman Chafin (D-Mingo) isn’t the only bill in the Senate about compulsory education. Based on the recommendation of an interim study, another bill in play—Senate Bill 343—raises the age from 16 to 17.

Chafin says eighteen is a more appropriate age.

“Sixteen-year-olds sometimes, they don’t have a lick of sense,” Chafin said. “It affects their future so much. I say that kind of kiddingly, but sometimes you really can’t think about the future like you should at sixteen, especially something as important as ‘am I going to finish high school or not.’ We have to have compulsory high school attendance till 18 in West Virginia to get the numbers up.”

Right now, 13 states require teenagers to attend school until they’re 18—including neighboring Ohio and Virginia.

Sen. Randy White (D-Webster) is the chair of a subcommittee studying the high school dropout rate. He says tackling the issue has to be done well before high school.

“We heard anecdotal evidence that you can actually identify these kids who are potential dropouts at a very early age,” White said. “There’s a period from grades K through 3 when kids aren’t reading on task. At grade 3, they are already beginning to get behind. And if you can’t have your reading skills up to par, then the kid becomes frustrated in school and obviously when he becomes frustrated he becomes bored, and not likely to succeed.”

The committee has issued a number of recommendations, including a higher compulsory attendance age, and working with potential dropouts to figure out their reason for wanting to leave school. White says the subcommittee also recommended that current truancy laws be enforced.

“Because what we did find, one of the problems with dropouts are the kids start missing school, when they miss school they get behind in their work, and at some point they become so frustrated within the school system that they drop out,” he said. “So we’re using that, along with a Senate resolution, to bring the judiciary as well as the local school boards to enforce the truancy laws.”

White says he hopes the subcommittee can continue meeting during the session and during the interims.

Also on the Senate floor, the Senate passed three bills.

Senate Bill 215 makes it an offense to assault volunteer firefighters and emergency medical workers, and Senate Bill 339 corrects an invalid code reference in voter registration lists. Senate Bill 388 allows small, Class 4 cities to only have 3 members of their municipal planning committee, rather than the five currently required.