Last school year, more local students failed to get the needed credits to graduate in four years, leading graduation rates to fall at most schools in Johnson County.
Johnson County high schools all performed better than the state average of 87 percent, according to numbers from the Indiana Department of Education. But most local high schools had their graduation rate decrease from the previous school year. The state average also dropped two percentage points, according to the state data.
The exceptions are Center Grove High School, who improved its rate from 95 to 97 percent, Greenwood Christian Academy, whose 100 percent rate stayed the same, and Greenwood Community High School, whose 91 percent rate stayed steady.
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The rate is based on the percentage of students who graduate in four years or less. Graduation rates also include students who received a waiver because they did not meet certain graduation requirements, such as passing end-of-course assessments. In 2023, students might have to grapple with a change to what is needed to graduate after a new proposal received approval from the Indiana State Board of Education. The proposal adds project-based learning to demonstrate employability skills, and meeting the requirements of other assessments, such as the SAT and ACT, as requirements for graduation.
Local school officials cited a state audit at one school that led to a lower graduation rate and small class sizes at some of the smaller school districts. But their goal is always to reach 100 percent, they said.
Indian Creek saw the biggest fall, dropping from 95 percent to 90 percent. At a school the size of Indian Creek, where class sizes are about 150, just having a few more students not graduate can contribute to a large fall in the graduation rate, said Tim Edsell, superintendent of Nineveh-Hensley-Jackson Schools.
“We are monitoring each student that does not meet these requirements and are trying to find out what were the missing pieces or issues,” he said.
Indian Creek already has credit recovery options for students who are in danger of not graduating on time, such as summer school and online classes. However, issues at home for a few students or a major life issue, such as medical problem, could be enough to drop the school’s overall rate, he said.
“There is a lot of different areas that are at stake here when you are trying to find out why a student does not graduate on time in four years,” Edsell said.
Most of the schools’ rates stayed within 3 percentage points of where they were in 2016, including at Whiteland Community High School, Edinburgh Community High School, Franklin Community High School and Roncalli High School in Indianapolis.
Roncalli students, teachers and parents have an expectation that students will be able to graduate in four years. Educators are still looking into what may have happened to cause Roncalli’s rate to dip from 99 percent to 96 percent, Principal Chuck Weisenbach said.
Whiteland Community High School’s graduation rate was audited by the state. That audit found that some paperwork and procedures that were needed to prove that 11 students had moved out of the district, including out of the country, were not submitted. That led to the school district’s falling rate, assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction Cameron Rains said.
The graduation rate after taking that issue into consideration was 93 percent, which was one percentage point lower than the previous year and three points lower than their graduation rate after the audit, Rains said.
School officials were not aware that they needed to submit multiple pieces of documentation in most cases and only submitted one during the state audit. They are working to adjust to the new polices and procedures outlined in the audit, Rains said.
Franklin Community High School’s rate dropped one percentage point. With some variables in calculating, the rate was close to what was reported last year, Superintendent David Clendening said.
