Kids don’t usually drop out until high school, but the warning signs crop up as early as preschool, local officials have determined.

So to address Hamilton County Schools’ declining graduation rate, administrators have organized an all-day graduation summit today at a local church.

More than 450 representatives of nonprofit organizations, churches, parent-teacher associations, law enforcement, elected officials and business leaders will brainstorm ways they can help keep students in school.

“There certainly are factors over which we take ownership as a district,” said Gloria Moore, humanities supervisor for Hamilton County and one of the coordinators of the event. “But then there are external factors over which we have no control.”

In the most recent statewide report card, Hamilton County’s graduation rate dropped from 72.6 in 2008 to 70.9 in 2009.

Superintendent Jim Scales has said that, even if students had perfect attendance at school, they still are in the building for only about 17 percent of their lives.

When a child doesn’t have adequate housing, nutrition or clothing, it affects his attendance and ultimately his chances at graduating, said Danielle Clark, the school system’s spokeswoman.

“We’re trying to figure out how these agencies can help the other 83 percent of the time,” she said. “There’s a fiscal cost, a social cost. Dropouts are a drain on society.”

The No. 1 factor that makes students more likely to drop out is whether they are older than other students in their class, said Kirk Kelly, director of accountability and testing for Hamilton County.

“There’s more of an emphasis on elementary and middle school,” he said. “We realize it’s just not a high school phenomenon.” he said. When a student starts high school at age 16 or 17, it’s unlikely that they’ll stay until they’re 21 and finish up, he said.

Rather than encourage teachers to promote students socially, even if they’re not ready, teachers are being encouraged to help students in early grades to make sure they are not held back.

By the end of today’s session, those present will have begun to create a plan for how to address the area’s dropout problem, Ms. Moore said.

She said she hopes people begin to realize that getting more students to graduate from public schools will help everyone in the community.

“Chattanooga has an inordinate amount of really good private schools. ... It leads some people to think, ‘Well, public school dropouts are not my problem,’” she said.