Triad Schools in Line With North Carolina's Increasing Graduation Rate

The State Board of Education met in Raleigh Thursday and released reports on statewide graduation rates and end-of-grade test results.

The four-year graduation rate for North Carolina High School students increased to 83.8 percent this year. It's the highest rate reported since 2006 when the state first began reporting the numbers, and more than a 1 percent increase over last year.

The Triad is also seeing higher graduation rates. Forsyth County was just below the state rate, but the school district says for the seventh straight year in a row, graduation rates have increased. Theo Helm, a spokesman for Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools, says a lot more work still needs to be done. The goal of the district is to raise the grad rate to 90 percent by 2018. He says partnerships with local organizations and community involvement is helping more students stay in school.

“Thanks to the help of a number of different community partners who have worked with mentoring students, credit recovering programs and worked with kids who are on the fence of dropping out and retaining them through good relationships and encouragement, we have really been able to grow that number this year to 83.5 percent.”

In Guilford County, the graduation rate for the class of 2014 reached a new high of 88.5 percent.  Beth Volger, the Chief Academic Officer for the school system, says like many districts administrators and teachers worry about continuing this trend because of funding cuts, increases in class sizes and a reduction of resources for tutoring.   

According to Volger, one of the main reasons for the continued uptick in the graduation rate for Guilford County is school choice.

“We have opportunities for students to take courses outside of school hours. We have small, large and very personalized settings. We have a twilight school that helps students who are behind or who only need extra credits to graduate. We also have graduation coaches at our high schools that help students and track them for four years to make sure that they are staying on course for graduation,” says Volger.

But both counties say they need to improve their end of state testing scores for students in grades 3rd-8th. Statewide, more than 56 percent were proficient in reading and about 51 percent in math.