HSCHS graduation rate falls

The Wyoming Department of Education recently released statistics on the graduation rates for high school students across the state, showing an increase in graduating seniors for the fifth consecutive year.

For the 2017-18 school year, Hot Springs County had an 80.4 percent graduation rate, down from the 87.3 percent graduation rate of the 2016-2017 school year.

In 2017, 48 out of an expected 55 seniors graduated from Hot Springs County High School, while 45 out of an expected 56 graduated in 2018.

Comparing our numbers to the statewide numbers, Hot Springs County High School was well above the state average of 80.2 percent for 2017 graduates, but falls below the state average of 81.7 percent for the 2018 school year.

Very few schools across the state actually have 100 percent graduation rates. Those that do are schools with 30 or fewer seniors in any graduating class.

The larger schools in the state are doing well with their graduation rates, however.

For example, Laramie High School graduated 218 seniors last year for an 88.3 percent average. Campbell County had an 82.2 percent graduation rate with 235 seniors graduating, and Douglas High School graduated 115 students for an 85.2 percent graduation rate.

Numbers can vary widely even within a certain town as Cheyenne indicates.

There are three high schools in Cheyenne, Central, East and South. Cheyenne Central High School has a graduation rate of 95.6 percent, while Cheyenne East is more than 10 percent lower at 84.2 percent. Cheyenne South has the lowest graduation rates in the city with just 75.2 percent.

Across the state, girls have a higher graduation rate than boys, with the girls graduating at a rate of 83.6 percent, with the boys graduating at just 79.9 percent.

High school principal, Breez Daniels says some of the issue with the graduation rate stems from students dropping out of school before they graduate.

“One of our most important goals at HSCHS for the past two years has been to provide our ninth grade freshmen with a quality educational experience that sets them up for success in high school and beyond,” she said. “The research is overwhelming in regards to freshmen that fail to earn ninth grade credits being most at risk for dropping out.

“We saw this in 2017-18 when the majority of students that dropped out were sophomores that had failed their ninth grade classes. We now have a system of support and interventions at all grade levels to help students successfully earn credits and move through high school to achieve an on-time graduation rate.”

The drop out rate at the high school has gone down progressively with the implementation of the interventions, going from 11 during the 2016-17 school year to nine in 2017-18 and just three for the first semester of the 2018-19 school year.

Other things that may impact the graduation rates are students that are transient. In other words, they enroll in the high school and just a few weeks later, move, counting them as drop outs.

Students who take five years to graduate also affect the on-time graduation rate. They graduate, but are not counted in the on-time statistics.

Occasionally, for whatever reason, a student may have to leave the classroom setting in order to enroll in online courses to finish high school. If those students enroll in a non-accredited online program, they are counted as drop outs as well.