Tagged: Dropout

Pierre Travis, 23, has lived in Louisville's West End his whole life.

Like other youth we interviewed for our series featuring students who at some point dropped out of the public school system, Travis attended several Jefferson County public schools. 

Travis says after being suspended sophomore year he was sent to Buechel Metropolitan High School, one of the district's several alternative schools. Here, he cycled in and out of the system over the next three years and ultimately left Buechel after being arrested for threatening a teacher, he says.

Twenty-three-year-old Steven Gholston was born in Louisville’s South End but moved all over Jefferson County, even spending time in Cincinnati and Georgia. He says constantly being on the move was difficult.

Gholston says he attended over half a dozen Jefferson County Public Schools before dropping out. 

Jefferson County Public Schools officials support raising the district’s dropout age to 18 and they want to move forward with approval soon.

Currently, students can drop out of school at age 16 with parental permission. But the General Assembly has passed legislation that would give local school districts the option to change that.

It's a decision JCPS has openly supported on its legislative agenda for the past two years, says Superintendent Donna Hargens.

Twenty-year-old Kimani Straub says he left Seneca High School just shy of receiving his high school diploma. He's been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder and bipolar disorder, but he was always able to maintain good grades. 

But when he discovered after 14 years the man he thought was his father wasn't, things started to slip.