High school expects to meet graduation rate guidelines

Berkeley Springs High School has been working hard to make the new graduation rate to meet Adequate Yearly Progress. (AYP) It looks like they will achieve their goal of 90% or better.

Around 200 seniors will be graduating this year, said Berkeley Springs High School guidance counselor Candice Pennington.

The required graduation rate is 90% this year for all students who entered the class of 2012 in the ninth grade or that transferred in.

“If you don’t make 90%, you don’t make AYP,” Principal Lance Fox had said at their local school improvement council presentation at the April 3 Morgan County School Board meeting.

The required graduation rate for West Virginia high schools last year was 80%. Berkeley Springs High School had an 81% graduation rate last year.

Students that don’t graduate within four years with their class (termed a cohort) or that get a regular G.E.D. aren’t counted in a school’s graduation rate percentages under the new state graduation guidelines.

Two in-school G.E.D. options allow students to complete their G.E.D. and receive a regular high school diploma, which would be counted. One option is combined with a career technical education pathway and the other involves credit recovery.

Credit recovery and online E2020 courses were offered to students who had failed a class last school year or who were transitioning back from alternative school.

Evening credit recovery classes didn’t work because of transportation issues, Fox said. They used the online E2020 program to offer credit recovery in the school day. Around 40 of 56 students took advantage of it, he said.

Administrators, teachers, coaches and mentors are all having long talks with students that should be performing better, Fox said. They have to work on keeping kids in school.

Calculations of graduation rates differed across the country for No Child Left Behind reporting. The United States Department of Education worked toward establishing a uniform cohort graduation rate calculation for all states. Using the new calculation is required for adequate yearly progress reporting beginning this school year.