This guide is intended to provide teachers and administrators, especially in West Virginia, with information about high school dropouts, their characteristics, and ways to retain potential dropouts in high school. A pretest and answer key precede the text of the report. The first section presents an overview of the dropout problem and its consequences, such as the dropout's greater level of unemployment and lower earnings. In the second section, factors affecting attendance and enrollment are listed, and teachers are given methods for identifying potential dropouts. Checklists of characteristics and worksheets are provided for teachers to identify high-risk students. There is a report summary on dropouts in West Virginia, 1981-1982. The third section contains suggestions for preventing students from dropping out, such as tutoring, counseling, work-related schemes, alternative education, parent involvement, student-centered approaches, and other low-cost dropout prevention activities. The fourth section presents methods of evaluating the success of dropout prevention programs, while the fifth section consists of the results of a survey of dropout prevention activities in West Virginia in 1983. (KC)