Posted by Matt Frost on April 07, 2008 at 11:06:24:
In Reply to: Retention posted by Michael L. Janowitz on April 07, 2008 at 10:08:21:
My gut reaction was that that is too high a percentage. But before saying that I think you need to llok closely at the other classes that students are taking instead. In the case of my building, my 6th graders choose between band, choir, and study. This is a situation where band looks pretty good. 7th grade is a little tougher. Band, choir, or tech. ed. In our case that other class is not taught well and I can convince kids that they can and do do most of the stuff from that class on their own. the tech ed teacher at our other MS is much better and makes it much harder to keep kids.
Those types of things can fight against you and it's difficult to say what the right percentage is.. If you have cooperative administrators and couselors maybe you could look at creative solutions to the problem.
I wouldn't be comfortable with that high of an attrition rate, but the "blame" quite likely has nothing to do with you. That doesn't mean that i would give up, i would just look at other solutions to the problem.
In my case I lose anywhere from 10%-15% per year. Starting numbers (6th grade) are usually around 160 and our 8th grade band is at 135.
Hope something here helps!
Matt