There is criticism that the traditional high school is not serving the needs of students who are failing high school and rapidly dropping out. The high school dropout rate is alarming, for every ten students that start high school in California only seven complete and many more are being increasingly recognized as at-risk. The purpose of this qualitative research was to look at the effect a caring teacher has on the retention of the at-risk student within the alternative school setting. Eleven male at-risk students, ages 18 to 21, attending two alternative high schools were identified, and face-to-face in-depth interviews were held. The participants were asked to describe a caring and a non-caring teacher and to describe their feelings during the respective interactions. In response to the interview questions 147 caring statements emerged describing caring teachers and were grouped around the caring themes that had manifested in the literature. Those themes are; fairness, sense of humor, creativity, positive attitude, preparation, personal touch, respect, high expectation, compassion and sense of belonging. Nine of the eleven participants considered personal touch to be an important characteristic of a caring teacher. In response to the interview questions describing non-caring teachers 61 statements emerged and were grouped around the following non-caring themes; disrespectful of student learning outcomes, negative attitude, disengagement, showed favoritism and impatient. Six of the eleven participants reported feeling undervalued when teachers did not take time to explain the work.

With the probability that a large number of high school students will continue to drop out of high school unprepared for the world of work it is critical that teachers, administrators and parents have a better understanding of what strategies will contribute to better relationships between teacher and student and the relevance of the curriculum.