Schools

Mount Miguel Has Highest Dropout Rate Locally, New Data Reveals

The Spring Valley school is more than twice as high as the district rate, but far lower than state and county averages.

The graduation rates of all four local high schools exceeded the statewide and county rate last year, according to figures released Tuesday by the state’s superintendent’s office.

But Mount Miguel High School had the highest dropout for 2011-12 for local school's with 7.9 percent. Its 123 dropouts was also a high. Mount Miguel's rate was also more than twice the dropout avarage for Grossmont Union High School District, which is 3.9 percent.

Of the 927 dropouts in the district, 13.3 percent of them were Mount Miguel students.

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Grossmont High School featured the next highest number of dropouts with 79. But with more students than Monte Vista High School, which had 78, Grossmont's dropout rate of 3 percent was lower than the Spring Valley school's rate of 4.4 percent.

Helix Charter High School had the lowest number of dropouts (30) and lowest rate (1.2 percent) for local high schools.

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Each school's dropout rate was significanlty lower than the state’s 13.2 percent. All high schools in the county had a dropout rate of 10.4 percent.

Statewide, the graduation rate was 78.5 percent, and across San Diego County the rate was almost identical at 78.4 percent.

Statewide, graduation rates rose while dropout rates declined.

The 78.5 percent of students who started high school in 2008-2009 graduated last year. That was up 1.5 percentage points from the year before.

Among African-American students, 65.7 percent graduated with their class in 2012, up 2.9 points from the year before. Among Hispanic students, 73.2 percent graduated in 2012, up 1.8 points from the year before.

There was a corresponding drop in the state’s dropout rate.

The superintendent’s office reported 13.2 percent of students who began high school in 2008-2009 dropped out. That was down 1.5 percentage points from the year before.

The dropout rate among African-American students dropped 3.1 points to 22.2 percent. Among Hispanic students, the dropout rate fell 2.1 points to 16.2 percent.

Another 8.3 percent of students were labeled as neither dropouts nor graduates.

State Superintendent Tom Torlakson said while the trend is positive, California schools still need to do more. He said he’d like to see the graduation rate top 80 percent in the near future and then reach 90 percent by 2020.

He commended local school officials for improving education despite budget cuts the past few years and the fact that California is 49th in the nation in education funding.

“As I travel up and down the state, I see great things happening in California schools every day,” said Torlakson.


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