Denver Public Schools officials on Tuesday touted a 2.5% year-over-year increase in the district’s four-year graduation rate last academic year — 79%, a new record — while downplaying a steady dropout rate for grades seven through 12 of 3.8%.
“We are ecstatic with these results,” Chief Academic Officer Simone Wright said in a news release. “They show the hard work and dedication of our students, families, and teachers.”
Denver Public Schools is Colorado’s largest school district. Its graduation rate is below the state average while its dropout rate is above the state average.
The previous academic year, the district’s graduation rate was 76.5%.
Emerging out of the COVID-19 pandemic, Denver Public Schools in the 2021-2022 academic year made small, but symbolically significant gains, increasing its four-year graduation rate by 2.5%. But that news was tempered with the dropout rate eking up 1.2%, which is still better than in 2019, which saw 4.5% of its students withdraw from school.
The rates released Tuesday show a continuance of these increases.
“Setting a new record two years in a row shows that Denver Public Schools is doing the right thing to ensure that every learner is able to thrive,” Wright said.
Black and Latino students — two demographic groups that notoriously struggle to perform as well as their White peers — also made some gains in Denver, but not nearly as much as their White peers, who had a four-year graduation rate of 89.2%.
The four-year graduation rates for Black students was 73.4% and 73.6% for Latinos.
But not all minority students saw improvement.
Asian students had a 2.9% decline in their four-year graduation rate, which was 85.3% for the class of 2023. And the four-year graduation rates for Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islanders also dropped from 50% to 48.4%.
The Colorado Department of Education released the new statewide graduation and dropout rates on Tuesday.
Statewide, the four-year graduation rate for the class of 2023 was 83.1%.
Compared to the four-year graduation rate in the 2021-22 academic year, roughly two out of three school districts either showed improvement or remained the same.
“Successfully graduating from high school is a significant milestone that opens doors to numerous opportunities for students after high school, Susana Córdova, Colorado’s education commissioner, said in a statement. “Given the challenges that our students and educators have faced over the last four years, I am glad that in Colorado we continue to see an improved graduation rate and a decreasing dropout rate.”
Córdova previously served as the superintendent of Denver Public Schools.
All of this points to year-over-year graduation gains as districts across the state seek to improve the academic performance of students who struggled with learning disruptions during the pandemic.
The statewide dropout rate dipped slightly from 2.2% in the 2021-2022 school year to 2.1% last academic year.
The 2022 graduating class was the first that had to demonstrate — before receiving a diploma — that they learned enough English and Math to be ready for a career or college.
Set by local school boards, high school graduation requirements now must align with the Colorado Graduation Guidelines.
Data disaggregated by socio-economic status, students with disabilities, and multilingual learners will be released at a later date.
