ADMINISTRATIVE

In order for the Department of Education to meet Commonwealth 
legislative reporting requirements, the 1998-99 Report of Dropouts 
must be completed for certain schools in your division and is due 
in Richmond no later than Thursday, November 4, 1999.  Completed 
reports should be emailed to dropouts@pen.k12.va.us. (Note when 
emailing, there is no period at the end of the address, this 
period is for punctuation only).

The dropout report must be submitted by:

1.      Schools that had membership in any of grades 
        7 through 12, and

2.      Schools that had students age 12 or older 
        (on January 1, 1999) in ungraded classrooms 
        during the 1998-99 school year (e.g., self-
        contained special education classrooms or 
        alternative education programs for which 
        separate attendance registers were kept).

The dropout report should not be completed for vocational, 
technical, special education, or alternative education centers 
providing specialized instruction to students officially enrolled 
at other schools.

The data that were previously reported in Section 3, Count of 
Dropouts who were Ungraded Students Age 14 and Above, is no longer 
required and has been deleted from the 1998 - 1999 dropout report. 

A custom-designed dropout spreadsheet can be downloaded from the 
Department of Education's website at http://www.pen.k12.va.us by 
selecting "Data and Publications" and then selecting "Report of 
Dropouts 1998-99."  The complete address is: 
http://www.pen.k12.va.us/VDOE/Publications/Dropouts/datacoll/coll.
htm to access the dropout spreadsheet.  The dropout report can be 
completed using either Excel 5.0 or Excel 97. 

Information is required about the central office contact person 
who can answer questions regarding the 1998-1999 dropout report 
for all schools. In the Excel spreadsheet, contact information is 
requested on the first worksheet. 

The statistics on dropouts will be made available to the Virginia 
General Assembly, and the information will be included in the 
School Performance Report Card in January 2000.  Because of the 
short period of time we have in which to process and publish 
dropout statistics, any reports received before our stated due 
date will be sincerely appreciated.  

Questions or comments relating to the Report of Dropout should be 
directed to:


                    Data Administration
                    Management Information Systems
                    Virginia Department of Education
                    P. O. Box 2120
                    Richmond, Virginia, 23218-2120
                    Telephone: 804 225-2099
                    Fax: 804 371-8978




PDS/dmb

Enclosures:     A hard copy of this memo and its attachment
                will be sent to the superintendent's office.