Graduation rates for Liberty County students surpassed state targets and state averages for 2024, school board members learned.

The four-year and five-year graduation rates were released Tuesday and presented to board members at their Tuesday evening meeting. For the four-year rate, which includes students who enrolled in Liberty County schools four years ago, the graduation rate was 90.87%, eclipsing the state target of 90 and the state average of 85.4% The five-year rate, which takes into account students who enrolled five years ago and did not finish within four years, was 89.43%, slightly below the state target. The overall rate was 90.4%.

An overall rate is calculated by taking the fouryear graduation rate and multiplying it by 66.67%, and adding that result to multiplying the five-year rate by 33.33%.

The state compiled limited scores for the 2020-21 school year and had no scores for 2019-20 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Liberty County’s graduation rates for 2019 were 87.99% for its fouryear cohort, 88.79% for its five-year and 88.3% for its overall rate.

“Not only have we made up ground,” Dr. John Ryan, school system executive director of media and technology, said of the COVID-induced learning loss, “we’ve increased it.”

Bradwell Institute’s graduation rate has increased by two points from last year and is up 3.5 points from 2019. Liberty County High School’s graduation rate has been at least 90% since 2019. The system also hit or exceeded targets for six of its seven subgroups.

For 2022, the school system had a four-year graduation rate of 90.02% and the rate fell to 88.82% for 2023. The five-year graduation rate for 2022 was 93.06% and it was 90.9% for 2023.

The overall graduation rate for 2022 was 91%, and it dipped to 89.5% for 2023. “It shows we need to work toward graduating fifth-year seniors,” Ryan said of the numbers.

The system will continue to focus on tracking student transitions, such as credit repair, credit recovery and study skills course. Superintendent Dr. Franklin Perry and deputy superintendent Dr. Zheadric Barbra meet quarterly with seniors at both high schools and those will continue, Ryan added.

Ryan thanked high school staff and administrators, and elementary and middle school administrators and staff for making graduation a goal, for the high marks.

“We want to thank all our Liberty County parents, families, stakeholders and students throughout the educational process,” he said, “because they got the job done.”

“Thanks to all of our students first for doing a fantastic job,” said board chair Verdell Jones. “The schools, the teachers, the staff, parents, everybody, it’s a lot of hard work. We’re so excited about it. We want to keep pushing it up.”

Ryan also said the school system gets penalized for students who start at one of the two high schools but leave school and either don’t enroll somewhere else or go to another school yet do not make a request for their Liberty County records.

“Many of the fifth-year students are no longer here,” Ryan said. ‘If they left us and did not report to another school, that’s where it hits us the most. The schools spend a lot of time trying to find these students. Those students are lost to us but we’re still carrying them in our four and five-year cohorts.”