{"id":42682,"date":"2022-01-17T16:52:04","date_gmt":"2022-01-17T23:52:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-graduation-rates-post-slight-dip-amid-pandemic\/"},"modified":"2022-01-17T23:52:04","modified_gmt":"2022-01-17T23:52:04","slug":"colorado-graduation-rates-post-slight-dip-amid-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-graduation-rates-post-slight-dip-amid-pandemic\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado graduation rates post slight dip amid pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Adobe
Adobe Stock<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>
This story was originally published<\/a> by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at\/newsletters<\/a>.<\/div>\n

Data from the first graduating class of students to have gone an entire year through the pandemic shows variation and big disparities, but not huge drops in Colorado\u2019s graduation rate.<\/p>\n

Statewide, 81.7% of the Class of 2021 graduated on time last spring \u2013 slightly down from 81.9% in 2020<\/a>, according to data published by the Colorado Department of Education Tuesday. Although the dip may be statistically insignificant, it represents the first time in a decade that Colorado\u2019s annual graduation rate didn\u2019t increase.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know how tough it was for everyone last school year due to the challenges brought on by the pandemic with schools going to remote learning and others offering hybrid models,\u201d said Katy Anthes, Colorado\u2019s education commissioner, in a released statement. \u201cIt is a relief that the graduation rate is nearly the same as it was the previous year. With the state\u2019s dropout rate also nearly unchanged, it is a concrete display of the dedication and determination of Colorado\u2019s students, parents and teachers, especially during these tough times.\u201d<\/p>\n

Area schools were split between improving and declining graduation rates in 2021 compared with 2020 in a five-county region of Southwest Colorado, including, La Plata, Montezuma, Dolores, San Juan and Archuleta:<\/p>\n

Here are the four-year graduation rates for area schools:<\/p>\n

Durango 9-R<\/div>\n
Colorado Connections Academy at Durango, 60.3% (2021) compared to 55% (2020)Durango High School, 94.6% (2021) compared to 92.3% (2020)Durango Big Picture High School, 45.8% (2021) compared to 50% (2020)<\/div>\n
Bayfield 10 Jt-R<\/div>\n
Bayfield High School, 84.5% (2021) compared to 86.8% (2020)<\/div>\n
Ignacio 11 JT<\/div>\n
Ignacio High School, 62.9% (2021) compared to 87.8% (2020)<\/div>\n
Montezuma-Cortez RE-1<\/div>\n
Montezuma-Cortez High School, 77.7% (2021) compared to 84.5% (2020)Southwest Open Charter School, 36.7% (2021) compared to 38.9% (2020)<\/div>\n
Mancos Re-6<\/div>\n
Mancos High School, 96.8% (2021) compared to 94.3% (2020)<\/div>\n
Dolores County RE No.2<\/div>\n
Dove Creek High School, 95% (2021) compared to 92.3% (2020)<\/div>\n
Dolores RE-4A<\/div>\n
Dolores Secondary School, 85.3% (2021) compared to 96.6% (2020)<\/div>\n
Silverton 1<\/div>\n
Silverton High School, 100% (2021) compared to 75% (2020)<\/div>\n
Archuleta County 50 Jt<\/div>\n
San Juan Mountain School, 70% (2021) and N\/A (2020)Pagosa Springs High School, 100% (2021) compared to 92.4% (2020)<\/div>\n

Statewide, racial disparities increased in the past year with students of color seeing drops in their graduation rates where white students didn\u2019t. Students identified as Indigenous or Hispanic posted the largest drops among racial groups in graduation rates this year. Black students also showed a drop.<\/p>\n

Districts with large portions of students from low-income families also posted drops in their rate compared with last year. In the metro area, Sheridan, Englewood, and Westminster school districts had some of the largest drops, despite all having posted increases in 2020.<\/p>\n

The Denver school district, the largest in the state, posted a 74% graduation rate, just slightly down from 74.6% in 2020.<\/p>\n

In northern Colorado, the Greeley school district managed to continue its upward trend. This year, the district had a graduation rate of 84.1%, up from 82% in 2020, and 81.7% in 2019.<\/p>\n

Deirdre Pilch, the Greeley superintendent, said that increasing graduation rates has been one of her main priorities since she became superintendent in 2015. It\u2019s part of a strategic plan that pre-pandemic included close monitoring of students from their first year of high school. Students who are at high risk of not graduating on time are actually identified in middle school so they can receive additional support.<\/p>\n

During the pandemic, the Greeley district that serves nearly 22,000 students \u2013 including 70% students of color, and about 66% students who qualify for subsidized lunches, a measure of poverty \u2013 met mostly in person, though high school students had hybrid schedules with just two days per week of in-person learning during more than half of the year.<\/p>\n

To keep quarantines to a minimum, the district also switched to a quarter system where high school students took only four classes at a time. And groups of students who had special needs, or those who were learning English as a second language, had more in-person instruction throughout the year.<\/p>\n

The spring 2021 semester ended with all students in person five days a week.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt absolutely had to make a difference,\u201d Pilch said. \u201cTeachers and staff were saying, \u2018we need our kids every day, we got to have them every day.\u2019 There\u2019s no question you\u2019re seeing that in this data.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the win, the Greeley district also had a slight increase in the number of students who dropped out.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s absolutely the pandemic,\u201d Pilch said. \u201cWe\u2019ve gone down mostly every year, we shouldn\u2019t have a slight uptick. Families who were the most impacted suffered the most. There are kids we lost and we don\u2019t know where they went.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the summer, the district used some of its ESSER federal relief dollars to hire two additional attendance advocates to find missing students. Pilch said the two found and re-enrolled nearly 200 K-12 students who had been missing. Now they work to keep those students engaged.<\/p>\n

The small district of Sheridan, which borders southwest Denver, experienced a big drop in its graduation rate. But because the district is so small, the drop represents just a handful of students.<\/p>\n

Maegan Daigler, the district\u2019s executive director of assessment and technology, said that Sheridan officials found students at the alternative high school who said they wanted to continue school, but not while the district was in remote learning. Those students may have counted as dropouts, even though they have re-enrolled this school year, Daigler said.<\/p>\n

Sheridan now also has a district position dedicated to helping students re-engage and re-enroll in school. The rate of students coming back to school has increased, she said.<\/p>\n

Daigler also pointed out that Sheridan has been increasing graduation rates for students who take longer than four years. The six-year graduation rate for Sheridan High School was 100%, she said.<\/p>\n

Data manager Duncan Anderson, said Sheridan is in a position to be able to offer individualized planning for each student. The graduation data might help the district continue to do that.<\/p>\n

\u201cAcknowledging the pandemic was a real struggle for some students and as a result might need an additional year of high school,\u201d Anderson said.<\/p>\n

Statewide, the rate of students completing high school in five, six, or seven years, has continued to increase. A total of 9.7% of the Class of 2021, or about 6,614 students, remain enrolled and could still finish high school in their fifth, sixth, or seventh year.<\/p>\n

Look up your school or district\u2019s four-year rate below:<\/p>\n\n

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

schools in Southwest Colorado show mixed results compared with 2020<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":42683,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[493,1727,39,1086,155,28,392,216,327],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-42682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-archuleta-county","tag-dolores-county-school-district-re-2j","tag-dove-creek-high-school","tag-durango-school-district-9-r","tag-education","tag-headlines","tag-mancos-school-district-re-6","tag-montezuma-cortez-school-district-re-1","tag-silverton"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42682\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42682"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=42682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}