The Class of 2020 had the largest increase in graduation rate in 15 years at 4.8 percent, bringing the School District of Lee County’s rate to 88.5 percent.

“This is an incredible achievement by the students of Lee County,” Superintendent Dr. Greg Adkins said in a prepared statement. “We have seen our graduation rates steadily increase during the last few years, but these more recent numbers are beyond impressive. I am proud of our teachers and staff for their continued dedication to student success.” 

According to the district, the 4.8 percent increase places Lee County second among Florida’s largest 10 districts, and nearly two points better than the state average increase. The district’s graduation rate rose to 96 percent when not including charter schools, which, in Florida, are considered part of the public school system.

When looking at the last six graduating classes the increase is substantial with a 74.7 percent graduation rate during 2014-2015 to 88.5 percent in 2019-2020.

Among the 13 traditional high schools, the largest increase was 11.2 percent, bringing Dunbar High School to a 96.6 percent graduation rate. The highest graduation rate was at North Fort Myers High School at 98.9 percent, a 2.4 percent increase from the previous year. Lee Virtual School also had a large increase at 7.8 percent to 95.9 percent.

Other West Zone schools:

* Cape Coral High School had a 95.6 percent graduation rate, a 2.6 percent increase

* Ida S. Baker High School had a 94.4 percent graduation rate, a decrease of 2.3 percent

* Island Coast High School had a 98.8 percent graduation rate, .7 percent increase

* Mariner High School had a 97.1 percent graduation rate, .1 percent increase

Lehigh Acres schools:

* East Lee County High School had a 90.5 percent graduation rate, 3.9 percent increase

* Lehigh Senior High School had a 95.9 percent graduation rate, 4.8 percent increase

Other highlights:

* African American students graduation rate increased by 6.3 percent;

* Hispanic student graduation rate increased by 7.8 percent;

* English Language Learners graduation rate increased by 19.6 percent;

* Exceptional Student Education graduation rate increased by 3.4 percent

“We had a huge increase of 4.8 percent. All four cohorts of students had an increase. We are continuing to decrease the achievement gap and ultimately open up the doors as they move out of public schools and into the world,” Chief Academic Officer Dr. Jeff Spiro said.

He said the graduation rate was achieved by the district continuing to focus on the whole child.

“It’s not just about the academic piece. It’s about creating an environment that students feel safe, secure and welcomed and focus in on academics as well,” Spiro said, adding that foundation leads to a successful child.

Graduation Coordinator Shellie Taylor said although they have always had a focus on graduating kids on time, four years ago they created a strategic focus, which included a pre-K through 12th grade imitative. She said instead of waiting for kids coming through high school, they wanted to focus on the value of a standard diploma early.

“We built early warning systems, an electronic tool we use across grade levels,” Taylor said.

Areas of interest include attendance and grades for a proactive approach.

With this approach,  by the time a student enters ninth grade, they are set up for future success.

Another district tool is the district graduation tracker, which utilizes data points for what students need for graduation.

“We never had a district view of what district graduation was,” Taylor explained, adding that they can progress, monitor and put intervention in place before they get to the end of the year.

The tracker helps in building a framework for mentoring because they know working with the whole child is looking impacts of them coming to school every day. Some of those impacts can be certain barriers of why they are not coming to school and being engaged, she added,

Something the district rolled out during the last quarter of distance learning was two parts when looking at increasing graduation rates.

Taylor said they looked at the subgroups, such as the English Language Learners population and created a graduation task force. They located and identified all ELL learners to figure out a way they could reach them more efficiently.

All of the district departments jumped in and drove to the students’ houses to reach out, Taylor said.

“We really had a lot of progress of just going out and seeing where kids were,” she said, adding that it also gave them ways to bring resources with them, such as bags of food.

Spiro said it was a multi-tiered approach.

“It was not just one department, it was a myriad of strategies to meet the needs of diverse populations,” he said. “It’s really an umbrella approach. Hats off to our teachers. The teachers in the classroom that are there on the front lines having to deal with the pandemic and a variety of learning modules and being successful with academic performance of students.”

Spiro said they are a continuous improvement organization that is constantly looking at its systems, monitoring data measures to improve their graduation rate.

“Even though we made great progress, we are going to continue to look at things through the graduation lens, programming for students that have unique needs,” Taylor said. “Even though we sit back and celebrate, we know the work is not done.”

High School Curriculum and Instruction Director Candace Allevato said as they are getting ready to close out semester one of this year, they are really digging in to see which seniors are on track for graduation, and what might be holding other seniors back from reaching the finish line. This is done through a cross-divisional approach, again to help the whole child.

“We make sure students know exactly what they need to do this quarter,” she said.