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EDUCATION Report: Ashland High grad rate goes up ODE numbers show 89 percent graduation rate for school in 2015 Comment By Joe Zavala Ashland Daily Tidings Follow @@ADTsports DailyTidings.com By Joe Zavala Ashland Daily Tidings Follow @@ADTsports Posted Jan. 28, 2016 at 8:29 PM Updated Jan 29, 2016 at 3:40 PM By Joe Zavala Ashland Daily Tidings Follow @@ADTsports Posted Jan. 28, 2016 at 8:29 PM Updated Jan 29, 2016 at 3:40 PM » Social News Ashland High School’s mantra that “every student matters,” community support and excellent kindergarten through eighth-grade education all factored into another Ashland High graduation rate increase, AHS Principal Erika Bare said Wednesday. The Oregon Department of Education released its 2015 graduation rates to the public Thursday and Ashland High’s went up for the second year in a row to 89.08 percent. The jump represented a 3 percentage-point increase from 86.35 in 2014, giving AHS easily the highest graduation rate among non-Charter schools in the Rogue Valley — only Logos Public Charter School (91.04) graduated students at a higher rate. “Overall, we are very proud of our graduation rate,” Bare said. “We continue to improve. Of course, we’ll never be satisfied until 100 percent of our students complete, but we are really proud of that work.” Statewide, 73.82 percent of students in the class of 2015 earned a diploma or modified diploma on time, a 2 percent increase from 71.98 percent the previous year. The ODE factors in students who move into or out of a school district, emigrate to another country or die to form an “adjusted cohort” — cohort being, in this case, students who entered high school during the 2011-12 school year. The cohort graduation rate is calculated by taking the number of students in that adjusted cohort who graduated with a regular diploma within four years and dividing that by the total number of students in the adjusted cohort. The ODE also tracked five-year graduation rates and “completer” rates, which includes students who earned an extended or adult high school diploma and students who earned a GED. Ashland High’s completer graduation rate in 2015 was 94.54 percent. Ashland’s graduation jump was part of a valley-wide trend, as Medford School District saw a 10-percent increase to 75 percent, Phoenix-Talent a 7-percent increase to 74.22 percent and Eagle Point a 7-percent increase to 62.94. Ashland’s graduation rate was 90.87 in 2011 before dropping to 85.82 the following year and 82.98 in 2013, but it rebounded by 3 percentage points in 2014 and nearly returned to the 90-percent mark in 2015. To Bare, who took over as interim principal last summer and had the interim label removed in December, the school’s high graduation rate reflects the city’s dedication to its youngsters. “Ashland is very fortunate to be in a community that really values education,” she said. “They get the message starting in kindergarten that education is the ticket to success, and they’re getting that at school and in the community. So by the time they get to us, after experiencing our K-8 system, they understand the importance and they are taking it seriously.” Another key to Ashland High’s success, she added, is the school’s dogged effort to track down students who are struggling and step in to help before it’s too late. “For our at-risk students,” she said, “we’ve made a real conscious effort that every student is known, so there is really no way to kind of quietly fail at Ashland High School or to kind of leave without anyone noticing. So we really spend a lot of energy ensuring that every student is valued and cared for, and if they start to kind of slip or start showing risk behaviors for not graduating we’re really quick to intervene and start putting interventions in place.” AHS has two groups assigned to that task — a site council focused on “removing barriers on education equity” and a student services team, made up of students, that develops individualized interventions for each of their struggling peers. Each member of the student services team, which is made up of about 15 to 25 students weekly, is assigned a student every week, Bare said. The reasons for struggles in the classroom run the gamut, Bare added, so the SST must be diligent. “It’s an opportunity for students to be talked to and cared for,” she said. “It could be academic failure or life stuff, like a death in the family, or sudden homelessness. That is how we are sure that every student is known and can’t quietly fail.” The ODE’s report also broke down graduation rates into 22 subgroups, including race and ethnicity, student with disabilities, English learners, talented and gifted and economically disadvantaged. When looking at the breakdown, Bare zeroed in on Ashland’s economically disadvantaged population, an adjusted cohort of 95 students, 77 of which graduated in 2015. That’s an adjusted graduation rate of 84.21 percent. “With any of our underserved populations it comes down to ensuring that we have the proper supports in place,” Bare said. “So what are the barriers and how do we bring those barriers down? And that’s actually something our site council is examining really closely right now.” The entire report can be found online. To access cohort graduation data, go to: www.ode.state.or.us/search/page/?id=2644 . To access dropout data, go to: www.ode.state.or.us/search/page/?id=1 . To access essential skills data, go to: www.ode.state.or.us/search/page/?id=2042 . Joe Zavala is a reporter for the Ashland Daily Tidings. Reach him at 541-821-0829 or [email protected]. By Joe Zavala Ashland Daily Tidings Follow @@ADTsports DailyTidings.com By Joe Zavala Ashland Daily Tidings Follow @@ADTsports Posted Jan. 28, 2016 at 8:29 PM Updated Jan 29, 2016 at 3:40 PM » Comment or view comments Reader Reaction » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. Southern Oregon Directory Featured Businesses Loading... 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