Oregon graduation rate declines, a first since 2014, but Bethel, Springfield schools improve

For the first time since Oregon began calculating four-year high school graduation rates, the state's rate has decreased. However, the latest numbers are still the second-highest ever reported in the state.

Oregon has calculated the rate since the 2008-09 school year, with a change in the 2013-14 year on how that number was calculated.

Over those years, Oregon schools have made substantial progress. In 2013-14, the statewide "on-track" graduation rate — meaning students who earned their regular or modified high school diploma in four years — was 72%.

2019-2020: Oregon graduation rates reach new high in 2020, with almost all students improving

That number rose steadily over the years, reaching a peak of 82.6% in the 2019-20 school year.

But according to the latest data released Thursday, the statewide graduation rate decreased in 2020-21 to 80.6% — 37,320 students total — representing a two-percentage-point decrease from the previous year.

That said, the latest numbers are still higher than the 80% recorded in 2018-2019, the last year recorded pre-pandemic.

"This is Oregon's second-highest graduation rate," Colt Gill, Oregon Department of Education director, told The Register-Guard. "Clearly it is two points lower than last year's graduation rate, but through this challenge of the pandemic, and ... some of the state's worst wildfires ever, that our kids continued to log in, show up and follow the protocols and systems to be able to earn a diploma, I'm just incredibly overwhelmed that our students and families and educators pulled together to maintain this kind of progress."

Of note, the past two school years' graduation requirements have been changed due to the ongoing pandemic.

In 2019-20, the state announced any student who was on track to graduate and passing when sent home in March would automatically graduate, which likely contributed to the state and local districts reaching an all-time high.

In 2020-21, the state eliminated the "Essential Skills" assessment requirement but kept all others.

"The data released today demonstrates the resilience of Oregon's youth and spotlights that COVID-19 not only had a disproportionate impact on the health of Oregon's communities of color, they also had a far greater impact on students of color," ODE spokesman Marc Siegel said in a statement. "Every school district has different local needs and local solutions."

Churchill High graduate Sonja Nusser, center, joins fellow graduates in throwing their mortarboard in the air after a commencement ceremony on the football field at the high school June 17, 2021.
Churchill High graduate Sonja Nusser, center, joins fellow graduates in throwing their mortarboard in the air after a commencement ceremony on the football field at the high school June 17, 2021.

More support for specific groups

Every student group saw a decrease from the previous year. Student groups with some of the highest graduation rates statewide were Talented and Gifted students at 95%, CTE concentrators at 92.8% and former English learner students at 84.2%.

More: New high school hands-on CTE program in Eugene hopes to spur high-earning careers

For the fifth year in a row, the state graduated students experiencing homelessness graduated at the lowest rate of any other student group, at 55.4%. This is a drop of nearly 5% from the previous year, in 2019-2020, when they saw major gains and rose to a rate of 60.5%. The state didn't start gathering and reporting data on homeless students' graduation rates until the 2016-2017 school year; they've consistently had the lowest rate since then, though it has improved.

The state's Pacific Islander students also saw a drop of about seven percentage points, Gill said, "so those two groups in particular, I've been highly concerned about."

Oregon does have new federal funds through the American Rescue Plan Act to provide additional services to students, and the state is hoping to get legislative support in the 2022 session to create a Pacific Islander student success plan, as they have for other student populations, and an advisory group made up of Pacific Islander community members to help identify new paths to support.

Local districts' rates

Despite a tumultuous year of distance learning and adjusting to learning with new COVID-19 protocols, Bethel and Springfield school districts saw their graduation rates go up last school year. Eugene School District, on the other hand, saw its rate decline.

Bethel School District saw the most improvement in four-year graduation rates of the three metro-area districts. In 2019-20, its graduation rate was 79.2%. Last spring, the district jumped to 84%. Nearly every student group had a higher percentage graduating on time. This is up still from its pre-pandemic rate in the 2018-19 school year of 75.4%.

Related: Latest Oregon report card shows school enrollment declines, setbacks for some students to graduation

Some student groups with the biggest gains were economically disadvantaged students, who rose from 54.1% to 69.3%.

“These graduation rates are a result of an effort all the way through the K-12 system, starting from the very beginning, when we do programs like KITS (Kids in Transition to School),” district spokesperson Alisha Dodds said.

Dodds said the district uses a lot of its High School Success Fund dollars to set up specific targeted supports, such as devoting time for staff to evaluate attendance and grade data on a weekly basis.

“In addition to having an attendance team, we have administrators and counselors at Willamette High School specifically looking at the data on a weekly basis and evaluating which students need what sorts of supports,” she said.

This focus on analyzing data to give extra support to students based on need has been a focus for the past three years in the district, Dodds said, so they’re seeing those efforts come through with historically underserved students, such as students who have disabilities and those facing housing insecurity.

Springfield also saw its rate increase from 72.2% to 74.9%. In 2018-19, it had a rate of 78.8%.

Significant gains were seen in the district's population of English learners, jumping from 36.6% to 51.6% graduating on time. Economically disadvantaged students went up more than 10%, to 75.8%. The district had a decrease in graduating migrant students, dropping from 76.1% the previous year to 52.9% in 2020.

District leaders attributed a few changes to the success, including the addition of graduation and credit assurance coaches to help students meet deadlines and pass.

“We started it at the very beginning of the pandemic in spring 2020. But it really took hold because we were able to have a whole year with these kids that we thought, ‘Oh, I'm not sure if they’re going to make it or not,' ” High School Director Mindy LeRoux said. “So we were able to pair him up with that adult and that I believe was really helpful.”

The district also built in advisory time, added credit recovery opportunities through night school and summer school, and added bilingual help to assist migrant students.

The district also attributes its increase to a decrease in dropout numbers, Assistant Superintendent Dave Collins said.

At a glance: Oregon's annual 'At-A-Glance' district profiles show drop in students on track to graduate, low standardized test participation

“We know we got a lot of work to do, as we always do,” he said. “We're going to continue to strive for that.”

Eugene School District 4J did see a drop from the previous year’s peak (81.7%) and had an overall four-year graduation rate of 78.8% last year.

The district saw declines for nearly every student group, except two: former English learners and Hispanic/Latino students. Former English learners went up from 73.6% to 77.3% graduating in four years, and Hispanic/Latino students rose from 74.6% to 75.9%.

“Overall, the district looks at these numbers both at individual years, but also trends over time and the efforts and inputs that are going in to help ensure that students are succeeding in school, including graduating from high school on time,” 4J spokesperson Kerry Delf said. “Looking at the district's graduation rates, they're trending upward over time. Last year was a bit of an anomaly with an all-time high, in part due to some changes in how graduation and high school completion was handled statewide. But overall, those numbers have been trending upward.”

It is true that these latest rates are still an increase from the last full pre-pandemic school year in 4J. In the 2018-2019 year, the district had an overall four-year grad rate of 77.7%, according to ODE data. The previous year, 2017-2018, 74.3% of students graduated on time.

“It is hard to make comparisons from year to year when things are changing in a pandemic,” Delf said.

Masks at 4J: Eugene School District gets 90,000 KN95 masks for staff use to help against COVID-19

However, it is still clear from the latest data that some groups need more support. Homeless student grad rates fell from 48.8% in 2019-2020 to 39.7% last spring. While still above the 2019 spring rate of 30.4%, it’s still the group with the lowest rate, and has been the past few years.

“While graduation rates are trending upward, including for many underserved student groups, they still are far below where we want to see our successes overall, especially for students in historically underserved groups, including homeless students, students with disabilities and others,” Delf said.

Gill, the ODE director, said he was surprised students and schools were able to stay on the path trending upward, despite the fact the graduating class had nearly half its high school career disrupted by COVID-19. But the two classes that follow will still need help.

"What we need to continue to focus on is the impacts of our classes that are still in school. We know that our class of '22 and '23 in particular, also had significant high school credit impacts," he said. "So we need to continue to attend to any kind of unfinished learning and support students with their credit attainment these next two years, so that we can maintain the kind of graduation trajectory that we're currently on."

Contact reporter Jordyn Brown at jbrown@registerguard.com or 541-246-4264, and follow her on Twitter @thejordynbrown and Instagram @registerguard. Support local journalism, subscribe to The Register-Guard.

This article originally appeared on Register-Guard: Oregon graduation rate declines but Eugene, Springfield schools improve