City’s graduation rate down

The latest data for on-time graduation rates show Spokane Public Schools performing well below the statewide average, with Central Valley School District performing perfectly.

But superintendents at both districts question the validity of the numbers reported each year by the state Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction.

Despite statewide improvement in the number of high school students graduating within four years, the rate at Spokane Public Schools dropped by 20 percentage points in 2005 – 65.1 percent compared with 85.1 percent in 2004. The graduation and dropout data were released this week.

Central Valley, the county’s second largest district, shows a 100 percent on-time graduation rate. But, district officials said, the on-time graduation rate is likely closer to 94 percent – still one of the highest in Spokane County. No other district of its size was reported by the state as having a perfect graduation rate.

“Our numbers look good, but we know it’s not reality,” said Mike Pearson, superintendent of the district that includes Central Valley and University high schools.

Spokane Superintendent Brian Benzel also questioned the accuracy of the data.

“I don’t know what it means,” Benzel said. “I don’t even know how to compare it to the state average; there aren’t common definitions of how kids are counted in it.”

Statewide, the number of high school students earning a diploma within four years went up nearly five percentage points, to 74.3 percent. In Spokane County, 76.1 percent of high school students graduated on time in 2005, down from 77.7 percent in 2004, although most county districts were above the state average.

Pearson said Central Valley staff work hard to help students enroll in alternative programs – including those at other districts – before they drop out.

A student who transfers to another district could drop out three weeks later. In that case, the student would count as a dropout of the new district, not CV.

“We have no control once they get there,” Pearson said.

Among other districts, Deer Park shot up from 64.3 percent in 2004 to 86 percent in 2005 after correcting reporting errors. Staff last year incorrectly reported students as dropouts if they transferred to other districts, Superintendent Mick Miller said previously.

In West Valley, officials were also happy to see scores improve.

Last year’s data branded West Valley as having the worst graduation rate in the state, with just 21 percent of its students graduating on time.

This year’s statistics show a graduation rate of 96.6 percent, after school officials lobbied the state to exclude its two alternative schools – Contract Based Education and Spokane Valley High School – from the districtwide graduation rate. The two schools serve more than 700 nontraditional students from all over the county. In 2004 CBE had an on-time graduation rate of just 2 percent.

“It made it tough to try and continue to run those programs if it was going to cause such a black eye,” said Gene Sementi, assistant superintendent for instruction.

To exempt the alternative schools from the West Valley score, district officials had to prove that more than half the students attending those schools did not live within the West Valley boundaries.