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John Mcdonogh High School Student Threatened With Jail... By Her Mom: 'Blackboard Wars' (VIDEO)

WATCH: 'Blackboard Wars' Top Student Threatened With Jail

Alexis Cooper is a top student at John McDonogh High, the struggling New Orleans school with a staggering dropout rate featured in the OWN docu-series "Blackboard Wars." In this clip, Alexis' estranged relationship with her mother quickly escalates into an after-school standoff.

"Right now, she is in conflict with her mother," says principal Dr. Marvin Thompson in the video. "Alexis has left home, and has refused to tell her mother of her whereabouts."

Eventually, Alexis's mom threatens to send Alexis to jail for refusing to come home. Jail time may keep Alexis from graduating on time, so Dr. Thompson steps in.

"Right now my only goal is to defuse this situation," he says. "I just want these two people, mother and daughter, to get the emotion out of this conversation. If she's in jail, she can't graduate. And if that means I have to stay here all night to make that happen, then that's exactly what I'm going to do."

Watch "Blackboard Wars" on OWN, Saturdays at 9 p.m. ET.

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Before You Go

U.S. High School Graduation Rate 2009-2010 From The Common Core Of Data
U.S. High School Graduation Rate Over Time(01 of04)
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The U.S. high school graduation rate has trended upwards for the last few decades. "What we see is an increase," Jack Buckley, who directs the Education Department's National Center for Education Statistics, told The Huffington Post. (credit:National Center for Education Statistics)
U.S. High School Graduation Rates By Race(02 of04)
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The gains in graduation rates were distributed across all groups. "We saw improvements across all the races we're able to measure," Buckley said. "Asians had the highest rate, and black students had the lowest." Students that identify as Hispanic have seen an enormous increase of 10 percentage points from 61.4 to 71.4 percent since the 2005-2006 school year. (credit:NCES)
High School Graduation Rates By State(03 of04)
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In 2010, students in Vermont graduated at the highest rate of 91.4 percent. Vermont was followed by Wisconsin at 91.1 and North Dakota at 88.4 percent. Most Northeastern states came in at between 75 and 90 percent. California and Texas, the two most populous states, came in between 78 and 79 percent. The state with the lowest graduation rate was Nevada, with 57.8 of its students graduating on time. New Mexico, Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia and South Carolina also came out on the bottom. (credit:NCES)
High School Dropout Rate By Ethnicity(04 of04)
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The report also calculated the dropout rate. Around 500,000 students who were supposed to graduate high school in 2009-2010 were reported as dropping out, the report found, for a total of 3.4 percent. That figure represents a decline from 4.1 percent in the 2008-2009 academic year. (credit:NCES)
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