Whether educators recognize which students are at-risk and despite the extra time that is spent motivating and redirecting at-risk students, effective intervention must include analysis of both individuals and the systems that affect experiences in education. In order to understand the varied levels in which dropouts are affected and to plan effective intervention strategies to inclusively address contributing factors to the dropout problem, an examination of not only individual, but institutional and societal, factors is in order. Programmatic (micro school level) and systematic (macro social level) strategies must focus on both individual and institutional factors at early stages of the dropout process, regardless of whether the level of intervention is at the secondary or postsecondary level. The featured models of LeCompte and Dworkin (1991) and Tinto (1988) illustrate variations of micro and macro approaches of viewing contributing factors to student attrition at the secondary level. The intent of this work is employing theoretical integration of the featured models to assist in understanding the multifaceted contributors to why students drop out during the high school years.