Graduation rates for both of Liberty County’s public high schools have topped the state average for 2021–22, school system officials announced.
The 2022 rates were the first compiled since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
The state’s CCRPI data shows the overall fouryear county graduation rate for 2022 was 90%, with Bradwell Institute posting a grad rate of 90.6% and Liberty County High School compiling an 89.2% rate. Statewide, the four-year graduation rate for 2022 was 84.1%.
Bradwell’s five-year graduation rate has risen 5.61 percentage points since 2019, and Liberty County High’s has increased by 2.55 points.
“It takes all of us,” Liberty Schools Superintendent Dr. Franklin Perry said. “We’re committed to every child, regardless of where they come from. It’s nice to see our people have worked and our students have worked and stayed in school.”
The graduation rates for students with disabilities have jumped even higher since 2019. The four-year graduation rate has increased 7.56 points, and the five-year graduation rate has gone up 9.87 points.
“That is an incredible increase for that demographic,” said John Ryan, Liberty County School System executive director of technology and media.
In compiling graduation rates, the state Department of Education has a four-year rate, with students who started in the Liberty County School System as ninth graders four years ago, a five-year rate, with students who began as ninth graders in the system five years ago, and an overall rate. The overall rate takes the four-year rate and multiplies it by twothirds, then adds it to the five-year rate after it has been multiplied by onethird.
“This is one thing about graduation rates,” Ryan said. “They think of graduation rates as the seniors who are graduating today. Instead, it’s looking at the ninth graders who began school with us four or five years ago.”
The school system’s five-year rate for 2022 was 93.1% and the overall rate was 91%. Both the fouryear and five-year rates eclipsed the last state target, set in 2019. Ryan cautioned the 2019 targets were not applicable because last year was what is called a baseline year.
“It did give us an opportunity to see where we stood the last time the state set those targets,” he said.
School system officials also wanted to see the pandemic’s effects on the graduation rates. In 2019, before the pandemic hit, the four-year graduation rate was 87.99%, meaning it rose 2.03 percentage points during the pandemic. The five-year graduation rate rose from 88.79% and the overall rate increased 2.7 percentage points from 88.3%.
There were no scores from 2020 and limited data from 2021 because of the pandemic, Ryan said.
Ryan acknowledged there were challenges too, such as the graduation rate for multi-racial students and white students. Also, there is a gap tracking eighth graders who transfer out of the system before starting their ninth-grade year.
Ryan said the staff and faculty have worked “incredibly hard” for those results. With 2020 as a baseline year, the school system also will have higher graduation rate targets set for it in the future.
“We expect to have some pretty decent targets to reach,” Ryan said. “We look forward to making those goals.”