Superintendent Newsletter: This Year's Graduation Data

Graduation rate is the single metric that most directly captures whether a district is fulfilling its core mission: preparing students to complete their K-12 education. Communicating that number, in full context, to every family in the district is both an accountability act and a community trust-building one.

Lead with the four-year graduation rate

State the rate clearly. Not the informal sense of "how many seniors graduated this spring" but the official four-year adjusted cohort graduation rate. Briefly explain what this means: of all students who entered ninth grade four years ago, what percentage graduated within four years.

Compare it to last year's rate and to the state average. These two comparisons give families the context they need to evaluate the number.

Present disaggregated graduation rates

Show graduation rates by race and ethnicity, by income level (free/reduced lunch status), and by special education and English learner status. These are the groups whose rates are most likely to vary significantly from the district average, and families of students in those groups deserve to see the data that applies to them.

Name the trend

Is the overall graduation rate improving, holding steady, or declining? Show three to five years of data if available. A consistent upward trend is meaningful and worth noting even if the current rate has not yet reached the target. A declining trend requires honest acknowledgment and a clear response.

Describe what the district is doing to address the gaps

For groups with graduation rates below the district average, name the specific programs and interventions in place. Early warning systems that identify at-risk students by ninth grade. Credit recovery programs. Alternative graduation pathways. Counseling interventions. Career pathway programs that increase engagement for students who might otherwise disengage.

Connect to early intervention

Graduation is not just a high school outcome. It is shaped by attendance habits developed in elementary school, reading skills developed by third grade, and course-taking patterns in middle school. One paragraph connecting graduation to early childhood and elementary outcomes gives the whole district community a stake in this data.

Sample excerpt

"Our four-year graduation rate for the Class of 2026 is 92.1%, up from 90.8% last year and above the state average of 89.4%. When we disaggregate: graduation rates for white and Asian students are at 96.2% and 95.8% respectively. For Black students, the rate is 86.3%. For Latino students, 88.1%. For students with disabilities, 79.4%. These gaps are real and not acceptable to us. Our ninth-grade early intervention program, which identifies at-risk students in October of their freshman year, is now in its second year and showing a 6% improvement in on-track rates for the students it serves. That is the level of targeted response these gaps require."

Daystage delivers this graduation data communication to every family in the district at once, ensuring that the district's most important outcome metric is visible to the whole community.