Steve Green is pleased. For Green, the DeKalb County school superintendent, news that the district’s 2015 graduation rate was up 8 percentage points over 2014 — and more than 10 points overall since 2013 — was a sign that things were working.
He already had been happy about DeKalb’s SAT scores, which were up more than 100 points over last year’s results.
“It gets down to the individual student and being able to tend to them in a way we haven’t in the past without distractions,” Green said Monday morning.
The Georgia Department of Education reported this morning that DeKalb County Schools saw its graduation rate rise 8.3 percentage points from 2014 to 2015, adding to the 2.4 percentage point increase from 2013 to 2014.
Among the programs implemented as the district tries to improve students’ experience is an eight-person team of transition specialists stationed at low-preforming schools to keep tabs on children at risk of failing
“This is the kind of data that tells me what we’re doing is working,” Green said. “Even our most vulnerable schools are showing progress.”
There’s a concentrated effort to keep tabs on the students, Green said, which begins in the eighth grade in many instances. The hands-on approach helps educators spot early warning signs of trouble in classes, such as absenteeism, and engage students outside the classroom.
Other highlights of the report from the Georgia Board of Education:
• Twenty-four of 25 high schools in DeKalb County saw graduation-rate increases since 2013.
• The DeKalb School for the Arts has a 100 percent graduation rate in 2015.
• Two schools have graduation rates of 90 percent or more: DeKalb Early College Academy (97.7) and Arabia Mountain (97.2).
• Four schools have graduation rates of 80 percent of more: Chamblee, Lakeside, Redan and Tucker.
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