Graduation rate at NU Public Schools holds steady

By KREMENA TODOROVA

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM -- Graduation rates have held steady at New Ulm Public Schools over the past five years, according to Superintendent Harold Remme.

Remme, who examined the statistics on the Journal's request, in part to ensure that the same type of information is being compared in different circulating reports, found that eight out of this year's 225 seniors -- or roughly 3 percent -- did not graduate on time.

The percentage of students who graduated this spring is very similar to that reported every other year since 1999, Remme found. During the time span examined, typically five to six students failed to make it each spring, with classes ranging from 218 to 256 students.

These numbers translate into a graduation rate of 96 to 98 percent, Remme said. The rate is "pretty typical for a system our size," he said.

Of the eight students who failed to graduate this year, seven failed because they did not have enough credits -- the most typical reason not to graduate in spring, according to Remme.

One student did not graduate because of failing to pass the state's basic skills test -- the only such case locally since the test's inception. The test has been a requirement for graduation since 2000, the first year that seniors graduated under the now defunct state graduation standards called "The Profile of Learning."

Other than any implications of this student's case, it is probably too early to trace the impact on the local graduation rate of new state and federal graduation requirements -- the Profile, the content-based state standards that started replacing it last year and the federal No Child Left Behind law, whose provisions are still being phased in, according to Remme.

Remme pointed out that different, sometimes conflicting graduation statistics is generally traceable to different data collection methods or report formats.

For example, the school district bases its graduation rate calculations on the number of students who stayed in public school from grade 9 through grade 12 -- including students who left the public school for a time and then came back. This method tracks "staying power" -- or a sustainable trend -- and officials see it as a better indicator than its alternatives of how the school system is really doing.

In some reports, however, students who are pulled out of several districts in the region to attend the River Bend Area Learning Center are "charged to" New Ulm Public Schools, because New Ulm is the site for River Bend. So, a lower graduation rate at River Bend could cause New Ulm's numbers to look worse.

Yet other reports track students who left a district before graduation, for reasons ranging from family relocation to entering a detention facility.

In 2004, 17 seniors left New Ulm Public Schools during the school year, prior to graduation. Of them, five attended River Bend; five, with poor attendance records, dropped out of school altogether; three went to care and treatment; one went to jail; and one was an exchange student who left New Ulm in mid-year. The numbers -- and ratios -- are similar to any other year, said Remme.

Remme stressed the schools' strong commitment to enabling each senior to graduate -- on time.

If that does not happen, however, he stressed that the schools go "for the next best thing." They try to ensure that a student does graduate, by providing opportunities to make up credits in summer school or during the next school year.