BY MARK J. CRAWFORD
Telegraph Editor
The state is reporting progress in high school graduation rates, but not locally.
According to the Florida Department of Education, the statewide graduation rate improved to 87.3% for the 2021-22 school year. This was an improvement of 0.4%, when compared to 2018-19, which was the last year prior to the COVID pandemic.
The state reported graduation rates at 90% and 90.1% during those years, making the 2022 results appear to be a noteworthy drop. According to DOE the difference between 2018-19 and 2021-22 is a more “apples to apples” comparison The 2019 school year was the last year standardized assessment requirements for graduation were in place without exemption waivers. Required again in 2022, graduation rates dropped.
Regardless of which years you select, the graduation rate is down in Bradford and Union counties. Bradford School Superintendent Will Hartley said it was not unexpected.
“That cohort was our sophomore class the year COVID hit, which means they went home in March before state testing occurred. I think had they been able to test that year the grad rate would’ve been much higher,” he said.
According to Hartley, the students who had not met testing requirements have retaken the FSA, ACT and SAT trying to achieve a concordant score to graduate on time, but each subsequent testing placed them further away from the year in which were taught that material. Each time, the test became harder to pass.
“For that reason, I think if you asked all 67 superintendents across the state, they would all tell you that they believe the testing requirements should’ve been waived for that cohort like it was for the previous year’s cohort,” he said.
“If you look at the numbers across the state, you see pretty big decreases across the board. This will continue to be a challenge in the coming years as districts try to recover from two years of disruption to learning. We will continue to do all we can to help our students meet the graduation requirements,” Hartley said.
Bradford High School
2018 89%
2019 87.7%
2020 88.2%
2021 85%
2022 76.1%
Union County High School
2018 84.1%
2019 84.4%
2020 79.6%
2021 88.3%
2022 77.8%
While Clay County had its lowest showing in five years, dipping below 90% to 89.9%, Keystone Heights High turned its 2021 drop around.
Keystone Heights High School
2018 91.5%
2019 91.9%
2020 92.8%
2021 86.7%
2022 92%
Bradford did reduce its dropout rate from 10% to 6.9%, which represented 12 students. The graduation rate for Black students was down to 68.4%, which was 26 students out of 38.
Union County had two dropouts in 2022, which was one more than the prior year. In the past, it has graduated 90% or more of its Black students. The rate was 85% in 2022, or 17 out of 20. It also reported 11 multiracial students, eight of whom graduated, or 72.7%.
Keystone Heights High had fewer than 10 Black students, so the data is not reported. It did graduate all 12 of its Hispanic students. (The other schools had fewer than 10 Hispanic graduates.) The school reported five dropouts, a rate of 2.9%.
Progress monitoring
The state is also bragging about its new progress monitoring system and the apparent learning gains students are making.
Calling it the nation’s first full transition to such an accountability system, FDOE said the Florida Assessment of Student Tracking (FAST) progress monitoring system consists of three student “check-ins” at the beginning middle and end of each year. The first assessment sets a baseline for each student at the beginning of the school year, and the others chart their progress.
Based on the preliminary results from the first and second tests, 31% of grade three through eight students statewide are preforming at or above grade level in mathematics compared to 14% at the beginning of the school year.
In reading, pre-K to second grade students have grown from 20% performing at or above grade level to 36%.
According to FDOE, “Progress monitoring places the focus where it should be – on students’ growth and how teachers, parents and school leaders can support their growth. While this school year is a ‘hold harmless’ transition year to progress monitoring, the fact that students’ scores are already elevating is an indication that educators are leveraging more timely and actionable student learning data.”
FAST replaces the math and English portions of the FSA exam.
These are the only state statistics that have been released so far, but families can monitor their students’ FAST progress through their FOCUS account, or an online state portal found at www.flfast.org.
