Leon County Schools addresses post pandemic graduation rate, initiatives

As the Leon County Schools Class of 2024 prepares to accept their high school diplomas, the school district is reporting that out of 2,062 seniors, 341 might not get their moment in the spotlight or their diplomas.

In data collected on April 18, the majority of the students at risk of not graduating were missing the required eligible score on the 10th grade state English Language Arts exam and the Algebra 1 End of Course exam.

Teresa Dennis, the district's graduation coach, briefed school board members during a review meeting Monday, April 22, on the district's graduation trends over the past five years. She said seniors can become at risk of falling behind due to chronic absenteeism, learning loss from remote schooling and even mental health instability.

"When you have inconsistent attendance, it's hard to provide them those strategies and interventions," Dennis told board members of the issue of chronic absenteeism in relation to a decline in the graduation rate. "Those most critical students, those typically are the students that aren't in attendance."

To graduate, students are required to complete 24 course credits, or 18 credits for the ACCEL Diploma, maintain a 2.0 unweighted cumulative grade point average, and pass the 10th grade English Language Arts state exam and the Algebra 1 End of Course exam, or at least receive a comparable score on eligible college entrance exams.

Recent reporting from the Florida Department of Education shows a graduation rate of 86.1% for the LCS Class of 2023, lower than the state's average of 88%, and a stark contrast from pre-pandemic rates for the district that averaged 94%.

"I've likened COVID to a hurricane," Superintendent Rocky Hanna said. "A hurricane comes through a community and the next day the sun's shining, and the sky is blue, but the community is a hot mess, and there's a lot of collateral damage to clean up and it takes years to clean it up. The same thing with COVID."

"We know the kids that were out of school, were the ones that suffered the most, and it only made sense that if more of our students were out of school than the state average then it would explain why we saw a drop in graduation rates."

The data shows the district's graduation rate at 94% in 2019, and then a decrease by about 8% from 2020-2023, representing the district's struggle to return to a sense of normalcy in the aftermath of the pandemic.

"You just can't say, 'OK, well, the pandemic is over,' and that's where everything goes back to normal," Hanna told the Tallahassee Democrat. "We're going back to 90(%), I promise, and it's not going to happen overnight, it's just going to take a little time."

The latest data on the district's graduation rate is reported from 2023. It shows economically disadvantaged students and African American students with the lowest rate.

The 2023 graduation rate for Black students in Leon County was at 78%, a drop from its 2020-21 rate at 91%. For economically disadvantaged students the rate in 2023 was 75.2%, a drop from its 2020-21 rate of 89.6%.

Hanna said that LCS is a minority majority district, meaning the majority of its students are minorities, and more specifically, African American.

"The virus itself, had the most adverse impact, in African American households, at least that's what we're told," Hanna said of information he received from FDOE.

The majority of at-risk seniors in the class of 2024 are at Godby High School, accounting for 108 out of the 341 students. According to FDOE, the Title 1 school, located in the 32304-zip code, has a student population of 68.9% Black students, and 62.4% of its students are economically disadvantaged.

The reported data on students at risk of not graduating is constantly changing, Dennis said. In October 2023, the districted reported 624 students in the class of 2024 were at risk, now that number has dropped by half.

Hanna says he is "cautiously optimistic" that the class of 2024 will render a higher graduation rate for the district with the help of academic initiatives.

Dennis said the district has a number of initiatives to help students get on track for graduating. For example, students who miss or fail the required 10th grade assessments, can attend the district's testing boot camps on Saturdays and on select after school days. They also can take college entrance exams for free during the school day to get an eligible comparable score.

Credit recovery is also offered during summer school or after school for those who need it.

The district has also increased the presence of social workers on campuses to address the mental health needs of students, and launched the Attendance Matters initiative to inform parents on why it is important to make sure their student is in class. There are also career and technical education programs offered at every LCS high school campus in the district to prepare students for the workforce.

Alaijah Brown covers children & families for the Tallahassee Democrat. She can be reached at ABrown1@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: A look at the post pandemic graduation rate in Leon County Schools