What To Do When Your 17-Year-Old Wants To Go Back To School After Dropping Out
It was 8:30 on a Tuesday in mid-October, I was on the living room couch folding Javi’s clean laundry, the kind that’s been sitting in the dryer for three days because he never remembers to grab it. The local high school football game was droning on the TV, and Javi was leaning in the kitchen doorway, twisting the cap off a root beer he’d grabbed from the fridge, his hands still smelling like the vanilla syrup he pumps all shift at the downtown coffee shop. “I think I want back in,” he said, no preamble, no lead up. I paused mid-fold of his stained work hoodie, and for a second I couldn’t remember the last time I’d heard him say anything about school. He’d walked out halfway through sophomore year, 10 months earlier, after missing three weeks with mono and falling so far behind in trig that he stopped showing up altogether. We’d screamed about it for two weeks, I printed GED brochures and left them on his bed, he told me school was a waste of time and he was fine making $15 an hour plus tips. The brochure was still on the fridge, stuck under a magnet from his coffee shop.
I didn’t say what I first thought, which was “Thank god, I was right all along.” That’s the first thing I’d tell any parent in this spot, don’t say that. Even if you’ve been panicking for a year about their choices, even if you warned them this would happen, keeping that line locked in your head is the first win. I turned off the TV, shifted the laundry pile off the other end of the couch, and said “Tell me what brought this on today.” That’s it, no big reaction, just space for him to talk.
He said it was a regular, a 42 year old electrician who comes in every morning for a dark roast before work. They’d been talking for months, and last week the guy told Javi he couldn’t even get an interview for an apprenticeship without a high school diploma. Javi said he’d gotten tired of spending every Sunday sitting on his best friend’s couch smoking weed and complaining about having nothing to do. All his friends that stayed in school were talking about college applications and spring sports, and he felt like he was just standing still. That all sounded exactly like what it was: a kid who’d outgrown the post-dropout bubble, and was ready to try again.
Over the past four weeks, we’ve worked through this step by step, and the things that have worked aren’t big, fancy interventions. They’re small, concrete moves that don’t require a ton of money or a dozen meetings with administrators.
First, don’t assume they want to go back to the same school they left. Javi made it clear within five minutes of that first conversation that he never wanted to step foot in his old high school again. He hated the 7 a.m. start time, he hated feeling like the kid who was behind, he hated the constant drama that never seemed to end. So I pulled up the district’s website that night and looked for all options, not just the default. We have a night school for students 16 and up that lets you work at your own pace, classes are four days a week from 3 to 7 p.m., so Javi can keep his two weekend shifts at the coffee shop and still have time for homework. That’s way better for him than forcing him back into the environment that made him leave in the first place. Most districts have these options, you just have to look – even if you have to call the district office to ask, it’s 10 minutes of work that makes a huge difference.
Second, sort out the awkward, embarrassing questions before they have to ask them. Javi’s biggest worry was that he’d be the oldest kid in class, that everyone would know he dropped out and came back. I called the night school counselor a week before we went to orientation, explained the situation, and asked if she could share how many other 17-year-olds were enrolled this semester. She told me 11, out of 75 total students, and that half of them were returning after dropping out for a semester or more. I passed that on to Javi, and it took a huge weight off his shoulders. He also didn’t know if he’d have to retake classes he already passed – I asked the counselor that too, and she pulled his transcript before we even came in, so we had an exact count of how many credits he needed before the first meeting. No surprises on day one.
Third, let them have some ownership of the cost and the schedule. Javi makes enough at work to cover half of a new laptop he needs for online assignments, so we made a deal: we pay half, he pays half, and it’s his responsibility to keep up with it. He picked how many classes he’s taking this semester – I suggested five, he wanted four, because he didn’t want to burn out after a year of not doing structured school work. That’s his call, not mine. If he finishes four easily, he can add one next semester. That keeps him invested, instead of it feeling like my plan that he’s just going along with.
Last week we went to orientation. He met his advisor, who dropped out of high school at 16 and got his diploma at the same night school 20 years earlier, and they spent 10 minutes talking about the best late shift coffee orders. He walked out with his class schedule, and he even stuck it on the fridge next to that old GED brochure.
We don’t know how this is going to go. I can already see the hard days coming: when he has a closing shift until 9 on Saturday, then class at 3 on Monday, and he’s tired and doesn’t want to go. When he hits a hard math unit and gets frustrated and wants to quit again. He’s not suddenly a model student, and this isn’t some perfect redemption story. But for right now, it’s working. He’s been talking about the apprenticeship every night at dinner, and he’s already mapped out when he’ll graduate if he keeps on pace: December of next year. That’s enough for now.
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