A junior from Whitefish Independent High School recently testified before the Senate Education and Cultural Resources Committee in support of the bill aimed at raising the legal dropout age from 16 to “age 18 or upon graduation.”

Cody Hill was one of three high school students to travel to Helena to testify as a member of Superintendent of Public Instruction Denise Juneau’s Student Advisory Board. Once there he found out he would have only one minute to speak.

“I ended up winging it,” he said.

Hill said he was disappointed when Senate Bill 44 died in committee Jan. 17, but the experience made him feel more invested in the bill’s fate than he otherwise might have been.

“I’m kind of bummed out about it,” he said.

The bill was held up in the Education and Cultural Resources Committee by a 5-5 vote. Sen. Ryan Zinke, R-Whitefish, the committee chairman, voted against it. Zinke said he didn’t think the bill addressed the heart of the issue and doesn’t “create an environment where kids want to learn or avenues where they should learn.”

“Simply locking the door, I think, falls short of addressing the core problems of why we are losing kids and why they are walking out the door,” he added.

Hill can speak from personal experience about what raising the dropout age might do for students.

“I’m 16. I almost dropped out last year. I didn’t really want to go back to school,” he said.

As a sophomore at Whitefish High School, he said, Hill said he found high school, with what he calls its “drama,” overwhelming.

“Everything piled together, and school wasn’t really that great,” he said. “The independent high school is so much better. It takes away the high school stuff, the drama.”

If not for the independent high school, Hill said he probably would have dropped out, although there’s a chance he might have transferred instead to Flathead, Glacier or Columbia Falls high school.

According to Juneau’s argument in support of the bill, more than 2,000 Montana students in grades 7-12 drop out each year, and Montana’s economy could see an additional $19.6 million in annual revenue and crime-related savings if the male high school graduation rate rose 5 percent.