High school completion is a fundamental educational milestone that holds important implications for both students and public education districts in Walla Walla County. For students, obtaining a high school diploma offers the expectation of more stable employment prospects, higher lifetime earnings, and the opportunity to continue one's education at the postsecondary level. For school districts and other educational agencies throughout the area, the share of their high school students that earn a diploma (or those who fail to do so) is now a major component of their scorecard. For communities, the educational achievement of its residents affects what kind of employers operate in the area and thus the overall economic vitality. If the local workforce does not have adequate skills, many employers will find a different community to operate in.
Starting with the 2010-11 school year, all districts in Washington State were mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act to conform to a new nationally standardized method for calculating high school graduation rates. The new method follows an adjusted cohort of students entering 9th grade for the first time and calculates how many of them graduate after four years of high school. The equation is quite simple: graduation rate = (students graduating within four years with a high school diploma) / (first-time entering 9th graders four years earlier +/- transfers). Each student is assigned an identification number to follow them if they transfer to a different school in the state, as transfers are the only component that alters a given cohort. There are no exceptions for students enrolled in Special Education, English Language Learning, or students transferring in with an inadequate number of credits. The new method allows for reflection on dropout improvements in a given cohort.
This indicator uses a high school cohort's experience from 9th through 12th grade, i.e. four years of public high school. The cohort is defined as the group of students with the same expected graduating year. Students who do not graduate in their expected year, but remain enrolled are counted as “continuing”. Upon graduation, these students will be included in the extended graduation rate calculation.
This indicator measures the on-time graduation rate of public high school students in Walla Walla County. Washington State is offered as a benchmark. Additional information, including a breakdown by school district in Walla Walla County and historical data that used a different methodology voiding a direct comparison of old data to new, can be found in the “Download Data” section.
*This indicator was selected by Walla Walla County as one of its core measures of student success