Graduation Rates Up, Dropout Rates Down In 10-Year Trend

At the January 19, 2017 Board meeting Superintendent Tom Boasberg presented the board with news announced today that DPS graduation rates continue to climb and dropout numbers continue to decline, continuing a 10-year trend of improvement in both areas:

• For the ninth consecutive year, the four-year or “on-time” graduation rate has steadily increased. In 2006-07, the four-year graduation rate was 39%, increasing to 67% in 2015-16.
• For students who started with DPS in ninth-grade, the four-year graduation rate was even higher – at 74%, and the five-year graduation rate for those students is now 82%.
• Also over the past decade, DPS has cut its dropout rate by nearly two-thirds. In 2005-06, the dropout rate was 11.1%, declining steadily to 4% in 2015-16.

Boasberg connected the work of the African-American Equity Task Force with driving further improvements to graduation rate gains, saying that advice of previous task forces had helped drive changes that had resulted in these gains.

Board Member Happy Haynes and Board President Anne Rowe also acknowledged the work of the district’s secondary schools, and specifically pathways schools, in the improvements.