WESTBROOK – When he first took over the reins of the Westbrook School District, Superintendent Dr. Reza Namin made it a mission to affect the local dropout rate.

Statistics emerging from the 2009-2010 school year, his first in charge, suggest that the culture is changing within the district.

The dropout rate – calculated by adding summer dropouts and school-year dropouts minus returned dropouts, and dividing that number by the entire high school enrollment – was 1.71 percent for 2009-10, Namin said. That means 13 students out of the high school’s population of 759 dropped out last year.

In contrast, dropout rates in the four previous years were 5.6 percent, 7.43 percent, 6.45 percent and 7.75 percent.

“We’re very proud of where we are now,” he said.

Namin credits the change to the realization that the dropout rate is not a problem exclusive to the high school.

“I believe that dropout is a pre-K through 12 issue. It’s not a high school issue,” he said.

Under Namin’s direction, the district built a vision for combating the issue through strategic planning, a year-long process involving public input.

“I felt that there was no shared vision here,” he said. “That (public process) was really important because it gave us a vision, collectively.”

Along with individual school councils and subcommittees for students and parents, the district has initiated a Dropout Prevention Committee to keep the dialogue flowing among parents, teachers and students.

“It was about listening to the stories of the students,” Namin said, adding that time and again, students wanted an education that was challenging, relevant and rigorous.

“We tend to have kids stuffed into a mold called curriculum,” he said.

Instead, Namin said, the district adopted WestbrookCore, which helps identify courses of relevance to each student to provide a more personalized education, and implemented a virtual high school providing 240 courses online that the district could not offer otherwise.

Namin also desired a move away from the disciplinary system’s “cycle of failure.” The district has done away with in-school suspension and replaced it with the “learning center,” which Namin said assigns students a task, giving them a chance to succeed rather than focusing on previous failures.

The district has also partnered with police and the United Way to work with families and neighborhoods on teen stressors including familial strains and drug use.

“I just wanted to shift away from this failing mode,” he said.

Chris Bowden, a 17-year-old Westbrook High senior, is one student thriving under the new system. Just two years ago, Bowden admits, “I wasn’t really into school.”

He said he was failing classes and was kicked off the track team because he was using drugs.

Now, school officials say, Bowden is among the leaders of his class. The turning point, he said, was when the track coach offered to make him a captain.

“It just gave me a big confidence boost,” he said.

Bowden uses that confidence to affect change in his peers. He is a member of RSVP, a group aimed at reducing sexual violence that goes into classrooms and performs skits, and recently acted in the school play, “Almost, Maine.”

Bowden said he used to like playing the class clown, but finds RSVP and drama are more creative ways to utilize his sense of humor.

“Chris has credibility with his peers,” said Bruce Dyer, substance abuse counselor and chairman of the dropout prevention committee. “Many can identify with Chris’s story.”

Though the signs are encouraging one year after Namin joined the district, he said there can be no complacency moving forward. When at-risk students like Bowden indicate a desire to quit school, they are immediately directed to the superintendent’s office to work things out.

“The issue of student dropout is a daily struggle because our students have daily emotional and academic challenges,” he said. “We will continue to fight because even one student not wanting to be at our school is disappointing to all of us.”