Wednesday Morning Roundtable Resumes Meetings September Focus on Education

Understanding Graduation Rates

Local high schools are seeing marked improvements in graduation and dropout rates, but there are still gains to be made in the number of students graduating in four years, according to a panel of school administrators who spoke to a group of community leaders September 21st.

Cayuga-Onondaga BOCES Superintendent Bill Speck, Auburn High School Principal Brian Morgan and AHS guidance counselor Steve Crosby participated in the panel hosted at the Center for Wellness in Auburn as part of the Wednesday Morning Roundtable series. Speck commended the leaders of all of the BOCES schools for affecting positive changes in graduation rates over the course of the last few years.

“I’m responsible for graduation data for nine districts,” he said. “In all nine districts, if I were to read you those stats, we should be very proud, because they are increasing — a sign of the community’s support and hard work — and well above the national trend.”

Morgan presented graduation and dropout data for Auburn High School showing that in four years the rate of students graduating has risen 8 percentage points, from 68 percent in 2007 to 76 percent last year.

He said that in some ways the data can be misleading, pointing out that the students who take more than four years to graduate, earn a general educational development degree or participate in programs for disabled students are not counted toward the graduate rate.

Still, Morgan championed advances in graduation rates among specific demographics, citing large gains in the economically disadvantaged, black and students with disabilities groups.

Crosby attributed the positive changes in the on-time graduation rate to Morgan’s policy changing the standard academic day from seven instructional courses to eight.

“A couple of years ago when we were looking at some of these things, we noticed that Auburn had an eight-period day, which is seven instructional periods plus lunch,” Crosby said. “When we polled the surrounding districts, we found that eight of the nine school districts had an eight-period day plus lunch. The analogy I used to describe this is we were playing football on a 110-yard field.

“A fair share of our students was able to have success with that, but the students who struggled with that in particular were those that had a hiccup. Maybe they had a difficult transition in the ninth grade and only picked up three credits. Now that student was in a very dire situation to graduate in four years, because there was just not the time in the day to do what they needed to do schedule-wise to fit things in.”

Crosby said the additional opportunity for credits was a key to helping many of those students make up missed credits to reach the needed 22 to graduate on time.

All three of the panel members admitted that the rise in graduation rates was movement in the right direction, but the numbers are far from satisfactory.

“I’m excited that we are moving in the right direction,” Crosby said. “Is 76 percent acceptable? Absolutely not, but do we have some things in place that are going to get us where we want to go? Yes, I think we do.”

Morgan used an automotive analogy to note room for improvement in Auburn’s graduation rate. “If I was driving my car, and the brakes only worked 76 percent of the time, I would not be happy,” he said. “I share the same sentiment in regards to the graduation rate, which has improved eight percent ... but we’re not where we want to be.”

-Citizen Staff writer Nathan Baker