Graduation rate at Warsaw Community High School increased from 74.9 percent in 2009 to 83.92 percent in 2010.
The dropout rate also decreased from 7.7 percent in 2009 to 4.8 percent in 2010.
Thursday night, during the Warsaw School Board meeting, WCHS Assistant Principal Steve Ferber presented the graduation report to the board.
Ferber said the Indiana Department of Education defines a graduate as any student who earns a diploma in four years or less. A cohort is the group of students from which the graduation rate is calculated.
"When a group of freshmen come into the high school, that forms a cohort. As years go, that cohort continues to evolve," Ferber said.
To graduate, students past pass the Algebra I end-of-course assessment whenever they finish the course, and the English language arts assessment at the conclusion of their sophomore year.
Some special education students are reported as receiving a certificate of completion. A certificate of completion is, by law, not considered equivalent to a diploma. Students may attend high school until they turn 22.
A student also may earn a General Education Development diploma. Ferber said a GED, however, is not recognized by the state of Indiana as a diploma.
There are four types of diplomas. To earn a general diploma, a student must earn 42 credits. A Core 40 is the minimum curriculum colleges and universities expect a student to take for acceptance. Academic Honors is the Core 40 with additional credits in specified areas. The Technical Honors is the Core 40 with additional eight or more credits in the career and technical program. The Technical Honors diploma is new this year, Ferber said.
For the class of 2010, Ferber said 103 students earned Academic Honors, six earned Technical Honors, 199 earned Core 40 and 109 earned a General Diploma.
A total of 46 students from the class of 2010 were not recognized by the IDOE as a graduate. Fifteen were fifth-year graduates, eight earned certificates of completion, seven earned their GEDs and 16 were retained. The students retained may be general education students who had some difficulty, or special education students, Ferber said.
He then compared 2009 to 2010.
In the class of 2009, 38 percent earned Core 40 diplomas, 22 percent earned general diplomas, 35 percent earned Academic Honors,, 3 percent earned their GED and 2 percent earned a certificate of completion.
The percentage of students earning a Core 40 for the class of 2010 was 46 percent. Twenty-five percent earned a general diploma, 24 percent earned Academic Honors, 1.5 percent earned Technical Honors and 2 percent earned their GED.
Ferber said that while Core 40 degrees increased from 38 to 46 percent from 2009 to 2010, Academic Honors dropped 11 percent. He said that may be because the students passed everything, but they did not choose to pay to take the AP exam, which is required to earn the Academic Honors diploma.
To encourage more students to take the AP exam this year, Ferber said, if a student takes the exam, they will be exempt from their final exams in those classes.
School Board Secretary Delores Hearn asked if students had trouble paying for the exam. Ferber said "sometimes" they did, however, the state picks and chooses which exams the state may pay for, and free/reduced lunch students do get a break.
Ferber listed the reasons students in the class of 2010 dropped out. Those include disinterest in curriculum (9), interpersonal problems (3), incorrigibility (2), need/desire to earn money (1), poor home environment (2), pregnancy (2), poor health (1), unknown/no show (5) and expulsion (1).
While the state has not yet released the state average for graduation, Ferber said the state average in 2009 was 81.5.
With the 83.92 percent graduation rate at Warsaw in 2010, Ferber said, "We're making progress. We have work to go, but we're proud of this."
For the class of 2010, 1.3 percent earned a certificate of completion, 1.5 percent earned a GED, 3.3 percent were retained, 4.8 percent dropped out and 4.5 percent were "unknown". That unknown includes transferring out of state (1.8 percent), transfer to homeschool (1 percent) and not able to be located (1.7 percent).
Ferber said the Warsaw graduating class cohort of 2010 includes 402 graduates. Fifteen other students from other cohorts graduated with diplomas in 2010. Eight students received certificates of completion.
Looking at a five-year trend, in 2006 Warsaw graduated 76.1 percent. That dropped to 71.9 percent in 2007, increased to 80.6 percent in 2008, dropped to 74.9 percent in 2009 and increased to its five-year highest in 2010 to 83.92 percent.
"I anticipate you'll see a higher number next spring," Ferber said.
