The Virginia Department of Education has released the 2011 “On-Time Graduation Rates” (OTGR) for Virginia’s public schools showiing that Roanoke County Public Schools’ graduation rate increased to 91.8 percent, up 0.6 percent from 2010.
“More and more of our students are graduating on-time,” said Roanoke County Public Schools’ Superintendent Dr. Lorraine Lange. “Our mission is to prepare students to continue their education and/or enter the workforce. Earning a high school diploma is the culmination of that preparation,” Dr. Lange added.
Statewide, 86.6 percent of the students in the class of 2011 graduated on time with a diploma.
The 2011 on-time graduation rate expresses the percentage of students who were first-time ninth graders during the 2007-2008 school year and earned a Board of Education-approved diploma within four years. On-time graduation has increased by 4.5 points since 2008, the first year VDOE reported graduation rates for the state, school divisions and high schools based on student-level data that fully account for student mobility, promotion and retention.
“A one-point increase in the graduation rate means that nearly 1,000 more young Virginians are beginning their adult lives with the diploma they need to pursue further education and training or an entry-level job,” Superintendent of Public Instruction Patricia I. Wright said. “The progress our schools have made in raising graduation rates is due the efforts of hundreds of teachers, counselors, principals and other educators across the commonwealth who refused to give up on even the most challenging students.”
The statewide dropout rate fell by one point. Of the 97,865 students in the 2011 graduating cohort, 7.2 percent dropped out, compared with 8.2 percent for the 2010 cohort. Roanoke County’s dropout rate is less than one percent (0.71%).
