High school graduation rates good but only give part of the data

Florida and Citrus rates up; District’s programs completion rate is over 90%

Today the Florida’s 2015-16 Federal Uniform Graduation (FUG) rate data are released at http://bit.ly/22IVwOJ. The results showed that Florida’s statewide graduation rate has risen once again and that we are now at a 13-year high. This is reason to celebrate and I believe shows the positive work happing in Citrus County and Florida.

It is important to understand that the Federal Uniform Graduation rate is not the full graduation rate. It only gives the rate for students that graduated in 4-years with a standard Florida high school diploma. It does not include students that graduated in the summer (some a few days after graduation), G.E.D., vocational transfer students, or special diploma graduates.

Florida’s statewide graduation rate climbed to 80.7 percent, an increase of 21.5 percentage points since 2003-04 and 2.8 percentage points over last year.  Citrus rose to 79.0 and 1.6 percentage points from 2014-15.  Citrus average rate includes our three public high schools, WTC, CREST, Cypress Creek Detention Center, Renaissance Center and the Citrus MYcroSchool Charter School.

Crystal River High School’s FUG graduation rate climbed to 86.2 percent, an impressive 12.1 percentage points higher from 2014-15. Citrus High School’s FUG rate grow to 88.7 percent, a gain of 9.8 percentage points from 2014-15.  Last of the three high schools, Lecanto High School’s FUG rate was the highest at 89.2 percent, and 2.7 percentage points higher from 2014-15.

Commissioner of Education Pam Stewart said, “Today’s news is cause for celebration! I am proud of Florida’s students for their outstanding achievement, even as the bar has been steadily raised.”

What I am even more proud of is our District’s programs “Completion Rate”.  As a District, and School Board, we do not simply focus on the Federal Uniform Graduation data– we look at the successful completion rate of all our students.  If you combine all of those rates for this past year, it was over 90% and which includes; district graduates for the year, G.E.D., 5^th year graduates, Special Diploma, and Certificate of Completion (which replaced Special Diploma in 2015).

These programs represent all of our students’ completion work and is the true testament of the successes in our community and with our students.

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