Q The Minneapolis public schools have launched a “We Want You Back” campaign to bring back students who have dropped out. How did you identify these students, and how do you plan to bring them back?

We used a two-tiered approach in our “We Want You Back” campaign. For outreach during the 2009-10 school year, our student-accounting department provided us with data about all students who had been coded as “dropouts” the previous year because they stopped coming to school. We examined that data and targeted students who had already earned 40 credits toward graduation with an outreach campaign that involved telephone calls, posters, and mailings.

Our plans for the 2010-11 school year involve a broader approach. In partnership with governmental and community organizations, we will be mobilizing hundreds of volunteers to blanket the city of Minneapolis, going door to door to contact young people who have dropped out over the last five years and let them know we are here to support them and get them back into school. Staff and volunteers will be conducting weekly check-ins with these young people to help them enroll in school or a program and complete their high school education. (Education Week, June 10, 2010)

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