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PCS Graduation Rate is Highest in History

August 6, 2012 - Pitt County Schools’ four-year cohort graduation rate is at 73.02 percent, according to North Carolina’s 2012 graduation rate report, presented to State Board of Education members last week. In 2012, 73.2 percent of students who started ninth grade in 2008-09 completed high school in four years or less. This is up from the 2011 rate of 70 percent.

Additional highlights of the report include:

All six high schools and the district improved their graduation rate in 2012.
Graduation rates at two schools – Ayden-Grifton and South Central – exceeded 80 percent and the State average graduation rate of 80.2 percent.
J. H. Rose High School experienced the biggest increase in their graduation rate from the previous year with an overall 3.77 percent increase.

A four-year comparison for each high school is provided below.

SCHOOL	2009	2010	2011	2012
Ayden-Grifton	68.6%	75.0%	77.5%	80.75%
DH Conley	62.7%	72.1%	74.8%	78.37%
Farmville Central	51.4%	61.0%	69.1%	69.78%
JH Rose	61.5%	60.8%	68.9%	72.67%
North Pitt	54.3%	57.1%	60.9%	62.59%
South Central	55.1%	72.4%	81.8%	83.33%
Pitt County	57.4%	64.0%	70.0%	73.02%

“We are pleased that every high school in the district saw improvement in graduation rates,” PCS Superintendent Dr. Beverly Emory commented. “South Central and Ayden-Grifton deserve applause for exceeding the state average. We are committed to improving our graduation rate and consider it a priority at all grade levels not just our high schools.”

Since the fall of 2002, local school districts have been tracking each ninth grader as he or she moves through high school. This record keeping provides the state with an accurate count of four- and five-year graduation rates. Today’s report provided four- and five-year cohort graduation rates for each of the state’s regular and charter public high schools, for each of the 115 school districts and for the state overall.

The rules for calculating graduation rates meet federal requirements and the National Governor’s Association’s definition. In North Carolina, students who leave high school for a community college GED or adult high school program are counted as dropouts under state policy. In addition, school officials only identify a student as a transfer to another high school when the receiving school requests the student’s records. If the transfer is not confirmed, the student is counted as a dropout.

The full report on the state’s cohort graduation rate, as well as previous years’ reports, is available online at www.ncpublicschools.org/accountability/reporting/cohortgradrate.