Some seniors chose to decorate their graduation gaps by displaying where they are going to college, inspirational quotes and artwork during the Brown County High School commencement ceremony last year. Last school year, 138 high school seniors earned their diplomas out of 158.
Every day, Brown County High School Principal Trent Austin looks at the percentage of students who did not graduate last school year as a reminder of the work to be done to make sure every students walks across the graduation stage.
Last school year, 138 high school seniors earned their diplomas out of 158.
But the graduation rate of 87.3% is higher than the rate in 2020. At the end of school year 2019-2020 the rate was 82.3%.
The state’s graduation rate for public schools is 86.5%.
Austin said outside influences in a student’s life, like their home environment or moving, contribute to the graduation rate. If a student withdraws to home-school and gets their high school equivalency (HSE, which used to be called the GRE), that also counts against the graduation rate.
Of the 20 students who did not graduate, 15 of them dropped out or went to homeschool or obtained their HSE. Of those 15 students, the high school knows of four who completed their HSE.
Also if a student moves and the high school cannot prove they enrolled in another school that also counts against the graduation rate.
“All of those things play a factor. The reality is our goal is we want to get in the high 90 percent,” he said.
Hitting that goal this year would bring the high school back to where it was in 2019 when the graduation rate was 96.5%. Graduate rates are one of the factors the state uses to evaluate high schools.
Because of challenges in the home lives of students, staff at the school must first make sure their basic needs are being met before addressing learning.
“Make sure they feel safe at school, make sure they feel supported at school. Those are always the challenges, so you start there and then you build up to where you get in the academic piece for sure,” Austin said.
Dealing with challenges and issues at home puts learning in school low on the priority list for students.
Students who move from the district and then are behind on credit requirements to graduate also has a negative impact on the high school’s graduation rate.
“Some of our students move frequently, they move in and then they move out,” Austin said.
“It’s not like we have students who are not meeting requirements and have been with us for four years. Sometimes what happens is they’ve been with us for a very, very short period of time then they move. That student falls on our graduation rate as opposed to another school.”
To help combat this, and make sure every student is on the path to graduate, the high school’s guidance department and master teachers are now tracking them beginning freshman year.
This is part of work the high school is doing through the TAP System for Teacher and Student Advancement, which is funded by a $5.5 million federal grant the school district received in 2019 to support and provide additional training to the district’s teachers as they help students reach educational benchmarks.
“We are working to track every student to find out are they on pace? Are they falling behind? What is the game plan if they are falling behind?” Austin said.
A worldwide pandemic was also not helpful in keeping students on track to graduate. Last school year, students had the option to attend school remotely from their homes and some of those students did not stay caught up on their schoolwork, Austin said.
“We’ve seen a big a change in student work completion and those types of things due to the pandemic,” he said.
“I think the pandemic has definitely played a part in student performance and students earning credits in order to be able to graduate.”
Students are also placed in quarantine if they test positive for COVID-19.
“The quarantines are very, very challenging. We find that some students who have strong supports at home and internet service at home, some of those students will stay caught up on their work when they are quarantined, but some students they don’t,” Austin said.
“When they don’t then it’s our responsibility to do what we can to help them get caught up. When they have been quarantined for 10 days it’s hard to catch them up after missing two weeks of school.”
Students who drop out also count against the graduation rate. A student can drop out when they turn 18 or after completing an exit interview with Austin. A principal can only sign off on a student leaving school before graduating for three reasons: Financial hardship, court order or medical reasons.
“Honestly that is something I am fighting right now. I have multiple students who want me to sign that paper and the truth of it is that by law the only way I can sign that paper is for one of those three reasons, so that’s something we’ve really been working on battling back and pushing back on,” Austin said.
“I don’t want to sign that paper. I don’t want to see them dropping out. I want to see them graduate from high school.”
As an educator, having a student say they want to drop out before graduating is one of the more devastating parts of the job.
“You see what the future holds,” Austin said.
”Typically speaking you know that when a student drops out of high school that it stacks the cards against the student for the rest of their lives.”
Austin said the school staff will speak with the parents and students to come up with a plan to keep them in school and to graduate.
“What else we can do to be able to help that student earn success by earning a high school diploma,” he said.
“Sometimes we have to be creative on how we get there, but it’s worth the conversation.”
