State high school dropout rate rose slightly in 2015 for first time in nearly a decade

AURORA | More Colorado students dropped out of school last year than in 2014, contributing to the first increase in the state’s dropout rate in nearly a decade, according to data released Thursday, Jan. 21, by the Colorado Department of Education.

The Colorado dropout rate rose 0.1 percent in 2015 as 568 more students dropped out of school than in the previous year. The state’s overall dropout rate for the 2014-15 school year was 2.5 percent.

“The department is concerned about the small increase in the dropout rate,” said Gretchen Morgan, interim associate commissioner of innovation, choice and engagement at CDE. “We know that earning a diploma or GED can have lifelong impact on young people. We think there are important lessons to be learned from schools and districts who continue to reduce dropout rates this year. Now that the data is released, we will shift our focus to learning about those programs.”

At Aurora Public Schools, the 2014-15 dropout rate was 4.4 percent. That’s a significant reduction from the 2005-06 school year when the drop out rate was 9.9 percent, according to APS documents.

Only 1.4 percent of students in the Cherry Creek School District, which encompasses much of south Aurora, dropped out of school last year, according to CDE.

In an attempt to buoy graduation rates and combat permanent dropouts, the state has actively attempted to re-engage students who stop attending school by offering them more time to graduate. Of the some 11,000 students who dropped out of school in 2014, more than 3,000 of them re-engaged with their schools last year, according to CDE.

“We continue to see value in offering additional time to students,” Morgan said. “This year, as in past years, there are significant increases in graduation rates when we include students who graduate in their fifth-and sixth-year.”

According to CDE, the graduation rate for the class of 2014 was 4.4 percentage points higher when students who took more than four years to graduate were factored in.

The CDE also announced Thursday that Colorado schools graduated 77.3 percent of their students on-time last year, which represents no change from the graduation rate in the 2013-14 school year. Students considered to have graduated on-time are those who finish high school within four years of completing eighth grade.

Only 59 percent of APS students who started the ninth grade in the 2011-12 school year have since graduated, according to data provided by APS and compiled by the Department of Education. That’s a 13.5 percent increase from the rate in 2010.

However, the APS graduation rate is in fact about six percentage points higher than the rate calculated by the state, although the higher number cannot be officially recognized due to CDE calculation procedures. If APS included students in the district’s Accelerating Students through Concurrent Enrollment (ASCENT) program, the APS graduation rate for the 2014-15 school year would be 64.7 percent, according to the APS calculations.

“We’re very excited about the trend that we’re seeing now,” Rico Munn, APS superintendent, said last month of the district’s latest graduation numbers.

The current graduation rate for CCSD sits at about 87 percent, according to the district’s website.