High school graduation rates improve

COEUR d’ALENE — Idaho high school graduation rates improved slightly since 2014, but new data also shows a need for improvement in some areas.

The Idaho Department of Education released statistics Friday showing 78.9 percent of seniors received their high school diplomas in 2015, up from 77.3 percent in 2014.

Idaho's online schools fared much worse with only 20 percent of the students who started out as freshman going on to graduate as seniors. Alternative schools were the second worst, graduating only 36 percent of students in four years.

According to Laura Rumpler, spokeswoman for the Coeur d’Alene School District, new federal guidelines implemented two years ago changed the way the state calculated graduation rates. The new guidelines do not allow schools to count certain student populations that used to be included when calculating graduation rates. Those students are now counted as non-graduates or are removed from the count entirely.

For instance, Rumpler said many of the students that attend alternative schools or online schools are struggling and take more than the traditional four years to graduate, so the new guidelines count them as non-graduates.

Some of those alternative students also opt to get their General Education Degrees, and the new formula no

longer considers those students graduates.

Other examples of non-graduates include alternative students who are in school completing credits to graduate, special education students who earned a diploma under adapted guidelines, students that were not assigned a specific exit code or withdrawal for reason unknown and students who transferred out of state without official documentation.

Rumpler said the district has yet to analyze the new statistics because they just received them Friday afternoon, and to do an accurate analysis the district needs one more piece of information.

The new rules require school districts to track students starting in ninth grade through their senior year, Rumpler explained. But if a student leaves the school, he or she is counted as a dropout unless the district can prove that student transferred to another school.

School districts can appeal those dropout numbers if they show the state that a student has continued his or her education at another high school.

“We are in an appeals process now,” Rumpler said, adding the outcome of those appeals has yet to be determined, so the graduation rate in the Coeur d’Alene School District will likely go up as some of those appeals are granted.

Rumpler said when the results of those appeals are released in the next couple of weeks, the district staff will sit down and thoroughly analyze all the data to determine the true graduation rate under the new guidelines.

“These new criteria are not helpful for alternative high schools,” she said.

Despite that, Rumpler said the graduation rate at Venture Alternative High School went up this year over last year’s rate. Last year the graduation rate for Venture after appeals was 31.8 percent and this year has increased to 33.3 percent, without the results of the appeals.

Coeur d’Alene High School’s rate went up too. Last year CHS was at 90.2 perecent after the appeals and this year has 92.4 percent before the appeals numbers are added.

Lake City High School didn’t fare quite as well. Last year LCHS had a graduation rate of 91.2 percent after appeals and this year that number fell to 87.3 perecent before the appeals are factored in.

The school district’s overall average was higher than the state’s total at 84.9 percent before the appeals are factored in.

“I quickly glanced at those overall district graduation rates and we fall right in line with many of those large districts,” Rumpler said, adding the district compares itself to some of larger school districts in Idaho such as Nampa, Idaho Falls, Twin Falls, Pocatello, Boise and West Ada.

Of all those school districts, only Pocatello exceeded Coeur d’Alene with an unadjusted rate of 90.2 percent. West Ada came close with an average of 84.1 percent.

The board's statistics showed on average Idaho's regular public high schools graduation rates were 88 percent. Public charter schools performed the best, graduating 91 percent of their students. Coeur d’Alene Charter Academy reported a 95.6 percent graduation rate, while Kootenai Bridge Academy, a Coeur d’Alene-based virtual online charter school for high school juniors and seniors, had a 28 percent graduation rate.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

Other schools

The Idaho Department of Education’s 2015 graduation rates for the Lakeland and Post Falls school districts are:

Lakeland School District overall 90.4 percent

Lakeland High School 98.8 percent

Timberlake High School 89.7 percent

MountainView High School 59 percent

Post Falls School District overall 75.9 percent

Post Falls High School 93.3 percent

New Visions Alternative High School 13.5 percent