Passing grade on grad rates

Woonsocket High School graduation rate rises, but superintendent says it could still be better

WOONSOCKET – Woonsocket High School finished 2016 with its highest graduation rate in over a decade – 71 percent, up 12 percent from just two years earlier.

That’s the good news, says Supt. Patrick McGee.

While the public high school is making great strides, the WHS graduation rate still ranks last among the state’s school districts. A couple of individual high schools in Providence finished with a lower rate, but the capital city’s aggregate graduation rate was 79 percent.

Statewide, Woonsocket and Providence were among only three school districts that finished with a graduation rate lower than the 80 percentile range; the other was Central Falls, which finished with 72 percent, second-to-last among the state’s 42 public school districts, charter, technical and trade schools. The Pawtucket school district matched the statewide average of 85 percent.

Pawtucket-based Blackstone Academy Charter was the only school in the state to graduate 100 percent of its students, according to Rhode Island Department of Education data released about two weeks ago. Woonsocket’s Beacon Charter High School for the Arts graduated 96 percent of its seniors.

Burrillville graduated 82 percent; Cumberland, 92 percent; East Providence, 86 percent; Foster- Glocester, 92 percent; Lincoln, 93 percent; and North Smithfield, 94 percent.

“We are by no means satisfied with our graduation rate,” said McGee. “However, the high school administration and staff have been implementing both academic and social emotional supports for our high school students, which we believe have been instrumental in improving student success and achievement.”

McGee said the bump in the graduation rate was largely the result of students getting extra help in math and a computer-assisted performance rehabilitation program known as “e-learning.”

E-learning allows students to recoup credits they’ve lost after failing a course by repeating some of the work on their own time, working from a special web site, according to McGee.

“There are students that are in the

program that more than likely would not have graduated in four years,” said McGee. “It focuses on areas they had difficulty in while they were in class.”

McGee said there are several initiatives in the works that he’s confident will lift the graduation rate even higher in the future.

This spring, the Woonsocket Education Department will partner with CVS Health to create a program dubbed P-TECH for high school freshmen. CVS will provide mentors and coaches for students who choose a study path in information technology.

Launching with 50 students, the program will allow a student who completes four years in P-TECH to simultaneously earn a high school diploma and an associate’s degree from the Community College of Rhode Island when he or she graduates.

In September, said McGee, the high school will establish its first “P.M. School.” Operating weekday afternoons from 2:30-5:30, P.M. School will offer course material that duplicates that offered to normal day students, except class sizes will be smaller.

“It’s an opportunity for students who are not successful during the school day to come after school,” said McGee. “For some kids, a traditional pathway doesn’t work for them. Instead of having them drop out of school this is a chance to reach out to them.”

The end result is that the students will graduate, the superintendent said. “These are kids we’d probably lose.”

McGee said the district is also planning to ramp up the e-learning program, since educators know it’s already helping get more kids across the graduation line.

But the superintendent says the district can’t merely focus on improving high school outcomes, when students have reached the final years of their academic journey in the public system. In order to shore up the graduation rate, the district must also do more to make sure the youngest students get a good foundation.

“It’s a systemic effort,” he said. “We’ve got to make sure we have students, when they finish the third grade, they’re reading at a third-grade level. If they’re not reading at grade level, the older they get, the more disenfranchised they become. It makes it a lot harder to keep them.” Follow Russ Olivo on Twitter @russolivo