Morgan Hill Unified School District’s graduation and dropout rates headed in the wrong direction from the 2012-13 to the 2013-14 school years, according to the California Department of Education’s statistics released April 28.
With an 88.4 percent graduation rate and a 7.7 percent dropout rate, MHUSD students, within the 2013-14 class, still outperformed the county (83.87 grad/11.1 dropout) and state (80.8/11.6) overall.
However, MHUSD’s previous cohort in 2012-13 fared even better with a 93.2 grad rate and a 3.4 percent dropout rate. While the graduation rate dipped by about 5 percent—572 of 647 students graduated on time in the 2013-14 cohort compared to 602 of 646 the previous class—the dropout rate more than doubled from the 2012-13 (22 dropouts) to 2013-14 (50 dropouts). The 2011-12 cohort had 51 dropouts, while the 2010-11 cohort had 103.
MHUSD Board of Education President Bob Benevento described the one-year decline as “an anomaly” since the “greater trends (for MHUSD students) show improvement in the graduation rate and…dropout rate.” Benevento said the state data should not be perceived as a knock on MHUSD’s Class of 2014, either.
“The Class of 2014 is a good class,” added Benevento, who sat down with 250 of those graduates during college scholarship interviews. “The caliber of students coming out of 2014 is as good as any.”
MHUSD staff has been reviewing the state data since it was released and is investigating the dramatic increase in total dropouts. Of the 50 reported in the CDE database, 20 are unaccounted for, according to district staff.
“We have some kids that we can’t account for. They may have went to another school or went to adult education….We don’t have any record of what happened to them,” said Assistant Superintendent Norma Martinez-Palmer. She noted any student is tagged as a “dropout” who does not graduate with their cohort group.
At this time two years ago, former MHUSD superintendent Wes Smith was searching for answers after the district’s 2011-12 class was reported as having a 78.4 percent grad rate—the lowest among all Santa Clara County districts—and a disparaging 17 percent dropout rate. Two months later, with some digging and corrective measures by district staff, those rates were adjusted. MHUSD’s 2011-12 graduation rate was changed to 88.1 percent and dropout rate to 8 percent.
“To peg a school district on one data point, which may be questionable, is dubious based on past experiences,” Benevento said. “In my humble opinion, the trending is going in the right direction.”
The state education department releases the graduation and dropout rates each spring from data provided to them by school district staff from the previous school year’s cohort of students. The data provided is then broken down by counties within the state, by school districts and by individual high schools, as well as by designated subgroups such as Hispanic, White and Asian.
In the 2013-14 cohort, Ann Sobrato High School students (92.6 grad/5.7 dropout rate) showed slightly better results in the CDE database than that of their counterparts at Live Oak High School (92.1/5.8). No breakdown of Central High School’s rates was posted on the CDE site.
In the Hispanic subgroup—one that is regularly analyzed and compared to other designations—the district recorded an 83.8 percent graduation rate and an 11.2 percent dropout rate (31 dropouts); Sobrato had rates of 89.6/7.8; and Live Oak was marked at 90.7/7.5.
In the White subgroup, the district held a 91.6 percent grad rate and a 5 percent dropout rate (14 dropouts) compared to rates of 96/4 at Sobrato and 92.9/5 at Live Oak.
Los Gatos/Saratoga Joint Union District students were at the top of the county’s grad rate among 11 districts with a 97.2 percent rate along with a 1.2 percent dropout rate. Fremont Union was next at 95.7/3.2; Palo Alto Unified 95.7/3.2; Mountain View/Los Altos Union at 94.7/2.6 and Milpitas Unified at 91.8/6.5 rounded out the top five districts.
2013-14 GRADUATION/DROPOUT RATES BY SCHOOL DISTRICT
Los Gatos/Saratoga Joint Union 97.2 percent grad rate/1.2 percent dropout rate
Fremont Union 95.7/3.2
Palo Alto Unified 95.7/3.2
Mountain View/Los Altos Union 94.7/2.6
Milpitas Unified 91.8/6.5
Campbell Union 88.5/7.6
Morgan Hill Unified 88.4/7.7
San Jose Unified 85.6/7.4
Gilroy Unified 84.1/10.9
COUNTY 83.87/11.1
Eastside Union 82.8/12.1
Santa Clara Unified 81.9/10.7
STATE 80.8/11.6
