Howard Graduation Rate

In this week's look at What's Right With Our Schools, Howard High celebrates jump in graduation rates.

They are happy about an improvement in their overall graduation rate for 2020.

It's tonight's edition of what's right with our schools.

Leandrea: sets we are 6 feet apart, socially distancing i am going to take this off.

We are so excited to let the world know that howard high school saw a 9.9% gain in our graduation rates for the 2020 school year.

The fact that we could take our english language learners and show a 19.6 percentage point gain, in one year speaks volumes.

Howard has been a round a long time and has always been about 98 to 99% african- american.

About six years ago we started to shift significantly demographically to wear today we are 52% latino, 46% african-american and about 2% other.

Natural sound: leandrea: when we have such a large number of newcomers those students who come to us they do not speak the english language and they have not been in a formalized educational setting for about five years on an average.

So when they come to us there is a lot of work we have to do just to first of all immerse them in to the language acquisition before they can handle the required courses for graduation.

Natural sound: leandrea: last year 2019 we saw our graduation rate at 63%.

And so we sat down to say ok let's learn about our newcomers.

And then let's strategize to make sure we find a way to keep them in school and they don't feel like they have to drop out because there is no other recourse.

A natural sound: zena: our students are engaged in learning that is meaningful to them.

So not just dealing with math, science, and social studies but they are also doing career technical education which is more hands on and it's based on their interests.

So for example if i major in healthcare, or welding that is what i do for a part of my day.

But it also incorporates my core content to that area so it's meaningful.

Leandrea: on october 4 we are going to celebrate low country style.

We are going to bring in all of our community organizations that have supported us, all of our faculty and staff members, district office personnel.

We are going to socially distance on the reggie white field and we are going to have our graduation bowl and kick off celebration for graduation 2021 and to celebrate what we have gained for graduation 2020.

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