CHARLESTON — What a difference a year makes.

Banking on that premise, Delegate Dave Perry, D-Fayette, offered a bill that would disallow any students from dropping out of a public school in West Virginia until reaching age 17.

Perry’s bill, and a companion one that addresses unexcused absences, are efforts to reverse an alarming dropout rate.

One recent audit shows the rate has climbed to 22 percent.

“And I’d say 22 percent may be a little low, depending on how you calculate it,” Perry said Monday.

“But we’ve got to do something to address the issue and do something to address this population that’s getting lost in the cracks.”

West Virginia’s existing compulsory attendance law allows a student to call it quits at age 16.

Perry says his bills grew from an interims study by Education Subcommittee C and were inspired, in large part, by the presentation of Nicholas County Circuit Judge Gary Johnson, who has embarked on a program to work with troubled students to keep them in the classrooms.

An interims study spoke volumes to Perry.

“This group of kids is getting lost,” he said.

“And it showed that one more year of maturation in the process appears to create a maturity that would cause those students to stay longer if they were held to that one more year at age 17.”

Perry said studies have indicated “a significant difference” occurs between the ages of 16 and 17, “after they’ve had that 9th grade year to matriculate to high school.”

In the Senate, Sen. Randy White, D-Webster, is heading a special education subcommittee to learn why such a large portion of West Virginia youth give up on education.

A generation or so ago, students who left school prematurely generally found suitable work. Often, employment was gained at a plant where a career was assured.

In today’s volatile market, those plants are gone, and with them the assurance of lifelong employment at the same place, Perry noted.

“Today, less a high school diploma, almost to the point of a college diploma, there’s no place for you,” said Perry, a former middle school principal in Oak Hill.

“Those plants aren’t out there and those jobs aren’t available for those types of persons.”

A second measure Perry has prepared would cut in half the current allowable number of 10 unexcused absences.

“And the belief there was, that by the time the record catches up with you in the judicial system, those absences are so excessive it’s too late to try any interventions,” the delegate said.

Perry said the higher age for allowing students to drop out has been under discussion the past seven or eight legislative sessions.

“I would assume it would receive more attention this year,” he said.

“There seems to be more discussion about days of attendance, dropouts, student performance and so forth. The whole state has to start looking at it. The gain is the student and the student focus. It’s not the school.”