City schools dropout rate lowest in state

Fifty-seven students dropped out of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools last year, according to a report released Thursday by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. Those 57 students equal a districtwide dropout rate of 1.53 percent, the lowest in the state.

The district's dropout rate did inch upward in 2007-08. In 2006-07, 41 students dropped out, and the rate was 1.12 percent. The 2007-2008 rate is similar to the district's results in 2004-05 and 2005-06.

The 57 students were divided among the three high schools and one middle school. Eleven of the 57 left Carrboro High, 14 left East Chapel Hill High and 31 left Chapel Hill High. Attendance problems and the desire to attend a community college program were the most common reasons students gave for dropping out.

"I think the key is keeping students engaged in school and allowing them to see that they are progressing toward graduation," Superintendent Neil Pedersen said. "Every student must see himself or herself as graduating from high school."

In recent years, the district has implemented a number of programs aimed at heightening student engagement and providing alternative paths toward graduation. Students may enroll in the Middle College program at Durham Tech in order to take high school and community college courses simultaneously. All three district high schools have opened themed academies that offer courses in core subjects with a focus on the arts, social justice or international studies.

-- From staff reports

HILLSBOROUGH

Castillo lawyer may use insanity defense

Under the right medications, Alvaro Castillo, accused of fatally shooting his father and then opening fire on Orange High School, might be able to aid in his own defense, his lawyer said Thursday.

But James Williams, the public defender representing Castillo, says he plans to use the insanity defense as he fights the first-degree murder charges against his client.

The question for a jury would not be Castillo's competency now, more than two and a half years after the shootings, but whether he was too severely mentally ill at the time of the violent incidents to be held criminally responsible.

Castillo, dressed in a dark suit, attended Thursday's hearing in Orange County Superior Court.

Williams asked Paul Gessner, a Superior Court judge visiting from Wake County, to set bail in the range of $250,000 to $500,000 in the hope that Castillo could get out of Central Prison, where he has been held for safekeeping, and return home to await trial. He has been locked up since the shootings on Aug. 30, 2006.

But Gessner sided with District Attorney Jim Woodall, who asked the judge not to allow bail for Castillo.

Woodall also told the judge that he and Williams were trying to resolve the case within the next several months, though he did not say whether that meant they were in plea negotiations.

-- Staff writer Anne Blythe

CHARLOTTE

Judge lowers bond for Yarmolenko suspects

A Gaston County Superior Court judge granted a new, lower bond for two men charged with the May 5 killing of 20-year-old Irina "Ira" Yarmolenko of Chapel Hill, a student at UNC-Charlotte.

The Charlotte Observer reported that Neal Leon Cassada Jr. of Mount Holly and Mark Bradley Carver of Gastonia were being held in the county jail under $1 million bond each on charges of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder.

Judge Tim Patti granted secured bonds of $100,000 for each man, ordering the the men to report to pre-trial services and be placed under electronic house arrest, The Charlotte Observer reported.

The sheriff's office said Cassada was released Thursday night, while Carver was released Friday.

Yarmolenko may have gone to take photos for an exam project along the Catawba River where she was later found strangled, according to a state investigator.

Investigators found DNA evidence that connects Cassada and Carver to the crime scene, the investigator said during the bond hearing in Gaston County Superior Court.

-- The Charlotte Observer

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