Led by Clarkdale and Northeast high schools, the Lauderdale County School District is among the top 10 school districts in the state with the highest graduation and lowest dropout rates.

On Thursday, the Mississippi Department of Education released the 2022-23 school year graduation and dropout rates, which showed an all-time high 89.4% graduation rate for the state’s high schools and a decreased 8.5% dropout rate. It marked another year of gain by Mississippi in its graduation rate, which has increased annually since 2013 when it was 74.5%.

With a graduation rate of 97.3%, LCSD was tied with Newton Municipal School District for the fifth highest graduation rate in the state behind the Mississippi School for Math and Science, Forrest County and Petal school districts and Mississippi School of the Arts.

The county school district was tied with Union and Pearl school districts to have the fourth lowest dropout rate of 1.4%. They followed the Forrest, Petal and Holly Springs school districts who tied for first with a zero percent dropout rate, Mississippi School for Math and Science at 1% and the Newton Municipal district at 1.3%.

“For the class of ’23 we are now up to 97.3% of the students graduating from high school,” said Ken Hardy, director of federal programs, student data and assessment, in presenting the report to the Lauderdale County school board during its monthly meeting on Thursday.

He said the district’s graduation rate has shown significant growth over the last several years from 82.8% in 2019, 91.4% in 2020, 92% in 2021 and 94.4% in 2022.

“Top five in the state as far as graduation rates out of 140-plus districts in the state of Mississippi,” Hardy said. “Definitely something to be commended.”

The MDE graduation and dropout rates are based on students who entered ninth grade for the first time during the 2019-20 school year and graduated four years later at the end of the 2022-2023 school year.

According to the MDE report, female students in the Lauderdale County School District had a higher rate of graduation than male students at 98.2% to 96.3%. Hispanic or Latino students and Black students had higher graduation rates, 100% and 98.4% respectively, than white students at 96.6%.

Among students with disabilities, the graduation rate in Mississippi overall increased to 70%, and the dropout rate decreased to 17.7%, according to the MDE report. The Lauderdale County School District had an 83.3% graduation rate for students with disabilities to rank 20th in the state.

Leading the county school district was Clarkdale High School with a 100% graduation rate and a zero percent dropout rate. Northeast Lauderdale High School had a 99.2% graduation rate and a zero percent dropout rate. Southeast Lauderdale High School had a 94.6% graduation rate and zero percent dropout rate, and West Lauderdale had a 96% graduation rate and 4% dropout rate.

In some instances, like with Southeast, which had the lowest graduation rate of the four schools but a zero percent dropout rate, the numbers include some students who are self-contained special education students who did not graduate in four years but are still enrolled at their respective school, Hardy noted.

He said disruptions from the COVID-19 pandemic have helped to push up graduation rates in recent years. Due to the pandemic, the state waived passing requirements for some high school end-of-year assessments in algebra I, English II, biology and U.S. history when last year’s graduating seniors were freshmen and sophomores.

“Some of (the increase) is due to covid wavers and students not necessarily having to pass all four tests (to graduate), maybe having to pass U.S. history or U.S. history and English (II),” he said. “But, I think, a lot of it is the hard work of our people, the hard work of our teachers, students, parents, administrators, to show some great improvement in that area.”

Northeast High Principal Joshua Herrington said the school was very excited with its 99.2% graduation rate, which is the result of a lot of hard work by students, parents, teachers and staff.

“That is an all-time high for Northeast High School,” he said. “That will make the third consecutive all-time high record in a row.”

Herrington said besides having students, parents and teachers more involved with keeping students on track toward graduation, the district’s decision to hire graduation coaches a few years ago also has had an impact.

“The district brought in the graduation coach position, which is a newly created position, just a few years ago. The graduation coach working with our counselor and our teachers has been a tremendous help,” he said.

Herrington said the graduation coach is responsible for keeping up with the cohort, making sure all students are meeting graduation requirements, keeping parents involved in parent meetings and exploring all options to get the students to where they walk the graduation line their senior year.