The high school graduation rate dropped by nearly three percentage points over the last year, but the Florida Department of Education said the rates are still higher than the pre-pandemic rate.
The Duval County School District said students in the class of 2022 graduated at almost the same rate as their pre-pandemic peers.
The 2022 class is the first class to graduate using the same standards that were in place before the COVID-19 pandemic.
In 2019, the year before the pandemic, the graduation rate in Duval County was 86.5%. The graduation rate for the class of 2022 was 85.6%
Even though the rates are close, Duval County Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Diana Greene said more needs to be done.
“We cannot be comfortable with that outcome,” Greene said. “Now that we are back to normal school operations, I am confident that the work we did to sustain students through the pandemic and the recent work to support students in making up for lost learning time will be evident in the long run.”
Looking at other Florida counties, in St. Johns County, the graduation rate for the class of 2022 was 93.3% down from 95% in 2021.
In Clay County, the 2022 graduation rate for seniors was 89.9%; down from 92.7% in 2021.
In Nassau County, the graduation rate for 2022 was 93.3%; almost an exact match to the rate in 2021.
Looking back at Duval County, the district wanted to share that the overall graduation rate of 85.6% is a more than 13% increase over the last decade.
