Alexandria City has rising graduation rate and low drop-out rates

More than 90% of students in Alexandria, Virginia’s only high school, graduated last year, according to new figures released by the state Department of Education on Friday.

At the same time, Alexandria City’s public school dropout rate plunged to 5%. This is the highest on-time graduation rate (91%) and the lowest number of dropouts since the state began reporting the numbers in 2008.

The highest on-time graduation rate for the school district was 86% in 2013 and the lowest dropout rate was 8% two years ago.

👏🏿👏🏼👏🏾 We are delighted to report that this year we achieved the highest on-time graduation rate (91%) and the lowest student drop-out rate (5%) since Virginia started reporting this data in 2008!

See the full story: https://t.co/EdPRMBiVHZ

congratulations @AlexCityTitans & Staff! pic.twitter.com/9XEgGwT8WT

– Alexandria City Public Schools (@ ACPSk12) September 30, 2021

The latest improvements come in a tumultuous school year, as students and teachers were forced to start the year with a virtual learning model and move on to in-person lessons later, said Peter Balas , Executive Director of Alexandria City High School.

“What these numbers show us is that our children were still engaged,” Balas said. “They always cared about their grades and their studies and really wanted to be connected.”

One area of ​​earnings that the school district shines through is the graduation rate among Hispanic students and learning English.

School leaders saw an increase in these figures of 15% and 19%, respectively.

Balas said the school district has a plan for all students, but really stepped up efforts to reach Hispanic students last year.

“We were very intentional about our Hispanic population,” Balas said. “We are identifying a number of student cases to help remove the barriers that prevent them from succeeding in school. “

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