Graduation rates reflect mixed results across Northwest Florida

Florida’s recently released high school graduation rates for the 2021-22 school year showed a slight drop overall to 87.3%, amid reinstatement of the state’s pre-COVID testing requirements.

With one exception, the annual Department of Educationreport showed graduation rates also fell in the counties of Northwest Florida.

At 78.4%, Escambia County saw the largest drop in its 2022 graduation rate, which is well below the state rate and down from 87% in 2021.

“That is a large drop and we need to be going in the other direction,” declared Dr. Tim Smith, superintendent of Escambia County Public Schools.

With the return of state assessments, school officials across the state expected a decline. But, Smith says he was caught off guard by Escambia’s drop of almost 9% over last year.

“To have them drop to the degree they did was concerning. So, we’ve got to make sure we change the trajectory there and improve and get our graduation rates back up to where they need to be.”

Maybe more surprising — and perplexing — was Escambia’s 6.4% drop from 2019, when graduation rates in the county reached a pre-pandemic high of nearly 85% and reflected an “apples-to-apples” comparison.

According to Smith, it’s possible that students in the district hadn’t rebounded from remote learning losses, but he acknowledged that shouldn’t be a factor, given that students were back in the classroom.

“That whole remote learning is becoming distanced from us, so that’s where it is difficult to really know did that loss of learning on the remote platform, does it really impact,” he surmised. “I don’t think there’s really a way to get anything more than correlations on that.”

Smith says what’s important now is to focus on making gains through current key indicators.

“We have to look at our instructional programs that are taking place in our classrooms, make sure we’re taking the necessary tests. We’re retesting if we didn’t pass it the first time. We’re looking at ACT/SAT concordance scores. There certainly are opportunities for us to move forward and that’s what we have to do. We have to make sure our students have good attendance, good instruction, good test scores.”

At the school level, it’s no surprise that Escambia’s West Florida Technical High School, with its focus on career academies and smaller enrollment, performed best in the district with an overall graduation rate of 98%. Of the more traditional schools, Tate High led the way with a rate of almost 86%.

For the district’s seven primary high schools, the African-American graduation rate was a little above 73% for the 732 students total in the cohort.

In the Santa Rosa County School District, the graduation rate for 2022, fell slightly to 89.9%. That’s a drop of less than a half percentage point (.4%) from 2021 when requirements were relaxed. And, in comparison to 2019, the district recorded a full 1% gain.

“If you understand what that data means, then as a superintendent I’m happy. But, I’m not satisfied,” proclaimed Santa Rosa School Superintendent Dr. Karen Barber.

“Obviously, we want to strive for above 90% graduation and not just 90%, but my goal is that we really shoot for 94-95% graduation rate.”

Barber said Santa Rosa would have had a graduation rate over 90%, if the district’s calculation did not include the statewide virtual charter school. A new state law will require the virtual school data to stand on its own next year.

Drilling down to the school level in Santa Rosa, the superintendent touted the 100% graduation rate among the 122 students combined at Jay High School and the district’s own charter school.

“Navarre High School, Gulf Breeze High School, Pace High School, all above 90% graduation rate — many of those at 95% graduation rate,” she said. “So, we’re really pleased with that.”

Just focusing on the small senior cohort of 104 African-American students across the district, 91% of them received diplomas. That includes 34 of 36 Black students at Milton, the district’s most diverse high school. Barber attributes some of the gains at Milton to a new mentoring program piloted by the school last year.

Additionally, the superintendent expressed excitement regarding the district’s Parent Portal and said she’s pleased to be adding a new graduation dashboard to be rolled out next month.

“It’s very simple to look at and parents can look at and a parent can check on what are the requirements of my child during their freshman year; sophomore, junior, senior,” Barber explained. “And, each dashboard lays out, here’s what your student has completed for graduation.”

That means if a student drops below the required 2.0 GPA, that information will be noted in red.

Okaloosa recorded a graduation rate of 87.5%, almost even with their pre-pandemic performance in 2019. The expected drop was just 4.7% from 2022.

“When we looked at our graduation rate, I think in essence we remained constant,” said Marcus Chambers, superintendent of the Okaloosa County School District.

All of the district’s traditional high schools recorded graduation rates above 90%, with Niceville High School scoring a graduation rate of 97.4%.

Like the superintendents from Escambia and Santa Rosa, Chambers is thankful for the growth in career-technical education offerings, especially for those students who may be struggling academically.

“It gives them that carrot, ‘Hey, I can do the math, social studies and science, because I’m looking up this CTE course such as construction, or such as welding or automotive,’” he said. “And, it keeps them interested. It keeps them motivated to stay in school, because when they graduate, they’re going to have industry certifications that can give them an advantage to having high wage jobs right away, right out of high school.”

From the Northwest Florida region, the Walton County School District performed best in 2022. That’s more than 5 percentage points higher than the Class of ’21 (91.4%) and is almost 8% higher than the 88.9% recorded in the 2018-19 school year, before the pandemic.