Gadsden school leaders outline steps to raise graduation rate, target students who disengaged

GADSDEN COUNTY — School district officials told the Gadsden County School Board that the district’s current graduation cohort includes 318 students and outlined a multi-pronged plan to raise the graduation rate by finding students who have withdrawn and supporting students who remain enrolled.

School officials presented data Wednesday showing 318 students in the 2021–22 adjusted cohort. Of those, 242 remained actively enrolled, 15 had graduated early in prior years, and 51 were listed as “negative withdrawals” — students whose withdrawal codes cause them to count as nongraduates. "Right now, we have an adjusted cohort of 318 students," said Doctor Holmes, the district staff member who presented the data. "If we were to graduate, we would have 62% of our students that are graduation ready."

District leaders said the largest single drag on the official graduation rate is the negative-withdrawal group. They described repeated efforts to re-engage students and correct withdrawal codes where appropriate, including staff outreach, home visits and searches through social media. "We are conducting exit conferences with families prior to them withdrawing," Holmes said. "If the family still chooses to withdraw, we want to make sure that we have those exit conferences ... so it's a positive withdrawal versus a negative withdrawal."

The board heard that the district is working with an outside organization, Graduation Alliance, to locate students who left the district years earlier and to help enroll them in programs that would count as positive withdrawals. Staff said some students moved out of county or state or enrolled in alternative programs, and that verifying those moves and updating the district's management system (Focus) before the state deadline would remove those students from the cohort denominator. "As long as we find them and get it inputted into Focus before August 31," Holmes said, the cohort and the published graduation rate can improve.

For students still enrolled but not yet "graduation ready," staff outlined academic supports: paid retake exams, multiple test opportunities (SAT, ACT, CLT and state assessments), test-prep boot camps, after-school tutoring, credit-recovery programs through Florida Virtual and other providers, and free online tutoring through Varsity Tutors. The presentation named specific assessment thresholds used by the state: a 480 on the SAT reading and writing, an 18 average on the ACT ELA subsections, or a 36 on the CLT verbal reasoning and grammar to meet the English requirement; and a 420 on the SAT math or a 16 on the ACT math subsection (or equivalent) for math.

Board members pressed about timelines and the potential gains from cleaning data and additional student supports. Staff said the district’s "active" enrolled students are about 82% graduation-ready and that the larger improvements depend on (a) locating withdrawn students before the August documentation deadline and (b) the test-and-recovery work for students currently in school.

The board received the report and asked staff to continue outreach, data cleanup and expanded test-support programming ahead of the state reporting window.

Ending — District staff said they will continue weekly outreach and data verification work through the summer and will report back on progress; the board also discussed summer programming and other supports intended to help students meet graduation requirements.