random question for teacher-type people

[thatotherperv]

theoretically fic-related but knowing me the last year and a half, nothing'll ever come of it. my brain is where bunnies go to die slow, tortured deaths. but anywhoo!


ok, I know in most states, there's an age at which it's ok to drop out of high school, and in some (all?) states it's below the age of 18. how does that work. if a kid decides to drop out, are his parents informed / required to consent? I imagine there's paperwork. I know kids who did it, but I never really thought much about the mechanics.

Comments

[cormallen.livejournal.com]

It definitely does vary quite a bit per state. In New Jersey, for example, you can drop out with parental consent as early as 16. My Pennsylvania knowledge dates back to the late nineties, and you needed to be 17, unless you held an employment certificate (or permit, I don't recall) and could prove you were working during the time school was in session. I'm still fairly certain parental consent was needed. In Connecticut, you need to be 16 with parental consent, although in early 2008 they were considering raising it a year: http://www.hslda.org/Legislation/State/ct/2009/CTHB5769/default.asp

I have no clue how it works if the child is an emancipated minor.

[thatotherperv.livejournal.com]

awesome, thank you!

I imagine if the child is an emancipated minor, it works as though they were a legal adult

[altyronsmaker.livejournal.com]

In FL, kids can drop out at 16, but their parents have to be informed AND sign their permission. If a student is 18, as is what happens with some lower level juniors and some seniors, then they do not have to have their parents' permission, nor do they have to be informed.

Hope that helps.

[thatotherperv.livejournal.com]

thanks babe!

[vikingprincess]

Used to be sixteen in TN, but they raised it to 18. In addition to that, in my county system, they try like crazy to get kids who are too old for their grade (like 18 and still in tenth, for example) into other programs to finish getting their diplomas. Now that NCLB is a fact of life for education in this nation, I would imagine that many states and systems are engaging in the same sort of thing, since any dropouts count negatively on their meeting standards for NCLB (No Child Left Behind). Before the Feds got into it with that, ages for dropping out without 'penalty' were probably lower all around. Now, I imagine many places have done like the system in which I work, raising the age and offering alternatives to those who've been frequent failers.

[pekover.livejournal.com]

I'm in Canada but I think it would still apply...

There's probably a difference between formally dropping out and just not coming. Technically, all our kids have to be enrolled at school until age 18, but there are students on our class lists that we literally never see. So, they're enrolled, satisfying the law, but there's really no truant officers or anything to make them come to class.

Sometimes one of them will get in trouble with the law, and attending school will be a condition of probation, and that's when it's really a pain, because they're forced to come to classes they have no hope of passing (like they'll start coming three weeks before the end of the term) and have no interest in...