This week the Florida Department of Education released the graduation rates for the 2017-2018 school year. We were so excited to learn that Citrus’s rate rose to an all-time high of 84.1 percent.

In addition, each of our high schools improved in overall grad rate, grad rate of students with disabilities, economically disadvantaged, and at-risk. We also narrowed the graduation gender gap and gaps among races.

Citrus High School increased to 93.5% (a 7.4% improvement), Lecanto High School increased to 92.6% (also a 7.4% improvement), and Crystal River High School improved to 90% (the largest with a 9.3% improvement).

The district’s graduation rate of 84.1 is a 6.5% improvement from last year.  The district’s graduation rate includes the three high schools of CHS, CRHS, and LHS, as well as CREST, MYcroSchool, Renaissance, and the Cypress Creek Juvenile Detention Facility. 

These graduation rates are based on the Florida Uniform Graduation rate with among other requirements includes only students who graduate in four years with a regular high school diploma divided by the number of students in the graduating class. It does not include all the successes from all our District’s completion programs.  For example, these rates do not include students that received a G.E.D., 5^th year graduates, Special Diploma, or Certificate of Completion (which replaced Special Diploma in 2015).  If those rates were included the graduation rate would be even higher at every school.

I am pleased with these successes but hope in the future to further increase these successes with improved high school career graduation pathway options currently not available in Florida statute, which now require specific state assessments to be passed as part of high school graduation requirements.  Our local Florida State Representative Dr. Ralph Massullo also shares a passion for CTE/workforce pathways in our schools along with Florida State Senator Wilton Simpson and many in Florida Legislature.  It is my prayer in the very near future that we improve and broaden the Career and Technical Education (vocational/workforce) pathway to graduation options in Florida statute to provide schools with needed flexibility for students so that we can increases these programs and pathways for some of our high school students.

In the meantime, congratulation Citrus County students and staff on an outstanding job!

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