Gloversville district lowers dropout age to 16

By RODNEY MINOR, The Leader-Herald
GLOVERSVILLE — The Gloversville Enlarged School District Board of Education on Monday changed the compulsory age of attendance for students.

The district had previously required all students who were not employed to attend full-time instruction until the end of the school year when they turned 17.

The change lowers the age to 16.

Superintendent Robert DeLilli said the school district has been considering the change for a couple of months. While school officials had hoped to narrowly tailor the policy, they had to generally lower the age to 16.

“One of our fears is that lowering it may make it an easy way out for some students who should not give up so soon,” DeLilli said.

Colleen Ulrich, director of student support services for the school district, said the school district probably has had at least four students attending classes only because the policy required them to.

These students see no value in attending school, she said. It is a struggle for them to stay in school, and sometimes they get angry and occasionally violent, she said. Many will not earn a diploma.

“They are not invested in school and have not been invested in school for many years,” Ulrich said.

With the school board considering how it would deal with its budget situation, she said, it was worthwhile for the board to consider what to do with these students. The board had to consider if it was worth spending tax dollars on students who would rather not be in school, Ulrich said.

“These are kids that would like to be out of school and working, quite honestly,” she said.

DeLilli said, to his knowledge, the school district was the only one in the Capital Region that required students to attend school until age 17.

Geoffrey Davis, superintendent of the Hamilton-Fulton-Montgomery Board of Cooperative Educational Services, said last week he would be surprised if many districts required students to stay in school past age 16, which is the age requirement under state law.

Davis said there are sound public policy arguments, however, for keeping students until they turn 17. Alternative forms of education might be found to help them, he said, and no one wants to add to the dropout rate.

Gloversville school board member Harry Wiggins said everyone feels responsible for what happens to children in the district, but the sad fact is that not all of them can be “saved.”

“There are students, at the age of 16, it will be time for them to move on,” he said.

DeLilli said the policy will officially go into effect next year.