This report, compiled by the North Carolina State Board of Education's Office for Dropout Prevention, provides dropout data, reasons for students' dropping out of school, and approaches for keeping students in school until successful completion of their education. Facts and figures for dropout rates of high school and the extended day school program servicing high risk students are presented in graphs and charts. A summary of four research studies examining reasons for students' dropping out is given with material from the studies themselves included. One of the studies described concludes that students most likely not to graduate are children of the poor and poorly educated; these children enter high school without firm direction and with low levels of achievement and patterns of non-success early in their school careers. Many dropouts, asserts another study, feel alienation. Specific recommendations from the other two studies are given which include identifying potential dropouts at an earlier age, and looking at attendance, retention, participation in extracurricular activities, how program choices are made, and how grades are assigned to students (especially minorities) as possible avenues to reducing the dropout rates. A third section (which makes up half the document) describes promising approaches (primarily conducted in North Carolina counties) which contribute to dropout prevention and illustrate the wide range of services and programs needed to meet the various needs of individual students. (ABB)