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Barrow County Schools four-year graduation rate rises to 92.68%
Summary
Barrow County Schools reported a four-year graduation rate of 92.68% for the Class of 2025, an increase that superintendent and staff credited to broader K–12 supports and higher absolute graduate totals (1,076).
Barrow County Schools reported on Sept. 30 that its four-year graduation rate for the class of 2025 is 92.68%, driven in part by the highest number of graduates the district has seen in recent years: 1,076 students.
The increase was presented to the Board during a work session by Ms. Beth Mitcham, who explained the state cohort methodology used to calculate graduation rates. "Our numerator is going to be your number of graduates: 1,076 this year," Mitcham said, and then described how the denominator is adjusted for documented transfers out of the district. She said after accounting for transfers the denominator was 1,161, leaving 85 students who did not complete the four-year rate calculation.
The presentation noted that every school in the system posted school-level rates above 90% and that the district rate (92.68%) exceeds the state four-year average of 87.2%. Mitcham and other administrators attributed the improvement to coordinated work across K–12, including counselors, social workers, teachers and support staff who assist students through credit recovery and other supports.
Superintendent-level presenters stressed the limits of the metric and explained how cohort tracking works: students become part of a cohort once they enroll, and districts subtract students from the denominator only when they have documentation that the student transferred elsewhere. Mitcham described challenges in tracking students who withdraw to private schools, homeschooling or out-of-state placements, noting additional documentation is required to adjust the cohort count.
Board members were given school-by-school breakdowns and a multi-year trend chart showing recovery from pandemic-era dips. No formal vote was recorded on the presentation; board members thanked staff for the work.
Looking ahead, staff said the district will continue communicating results with schools and families and emphasized that graduation outcomes reflect systemwide efforts across many roles.
