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Dr. David Hopson |
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April 9, 2007 I presented information on the high school graduation rate at the March 28 school committee meeting. The delay in gathering this information was due to having to cull information from two district student information systems, as the class of 2006 information was stored on both the old system and the new system. Using information from the DOE website, we find that the state is currently reporting Gateway’s 4 year graduation rate (as required under the No Child Left Behind Act) while acknowledging that there are students who will graduate in 4 ½ or 5 years. Students who take more than 4 years to graduate were not counted in the graduation rate for 2006; for Gateway, counting those students adds 7.9% to DOE’s 72.7% graduation rate. The graduation rate improves dramatically if we look only at those students that the DOE says started out as Gateway students, rather than those who transferred in during their high school career. Our graduation rate is 86.4% for students who attended Gateway all four years; if we add the additional 3.9% for students who are still in school the rate is over 90%. In reviewing the data it became evident that accurate data entry and retrieval procedures need to be followed as well as double checking all DOE data before it is released to the public. I believe we’ve addressed the data issue at our end and will ensure that we double-check DOE’s data in the future. The disconnect is evident when I note that the DOE has 3 different sets of numbers for the single class of 2006 listed on their website, all supposedly from the same data source. What about those students who elected to come to Gateway midway through high school and their impact on the posted graduation rates? Say what you will about the district, but we have been a last resort for many students over the years who can’t make it in their home district and elect to school choice to Gateway. Many of these students flourish at Gateway, some are sent to our alternative program at Holyoke Community College, and some continue to have problems and end up not completing their high school work. While its true that we could increase our graduation rate by not allowing some of these students to attend Gateway, this would also decrease opportunities for these students. This would put Gateway in the position of doing whatever it takes to look good on paper rather than concentrating on the needs of young people—something I don’t believe we wish to be known for, or something that we would want to achieve. Given the ever-increasing discussions and articles surrounding the district’s budget, I suggest that individuals who want to keep informed about the process, decisions being made, and underlying facts visit www.grsd.org and review the information on the budget page. An in-depth review of this information will show that Gateway is not fiscally irresponsible and a review of the performance report from the EQA on the same website will show that we’re actually doing well given our fiscal constraints. After the determination last week by the state legislature on local aid, I can say unequivocally that the problem with the district’s finances is not caused by the school, but rather by a broken and ineffectual local aid formula for school assistance. ### |
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