GOSHEN COUNTY – High school graduation rates in Goshen County have been steady for the past five years, and they remain so even after a somewhat chaotic second semester last school year that involved a speedy and shaky transition to virtual learning amid COVID-19.

According to data published by the Wyoming Department of Education (WDE) last week, Goshen County School District No. 1 graduated 86% of its seniors on time in the 2019-20 school year. The district’s rate dropped just 1.7 percentage points, from 87.7% during the 2018-19 school year.

Lingle-Fort Laramie High School and Southeast High School graduated 100% of their students in 2020, while Torrington High School graduated 78.2% of its senior class. Senior classes at L-FLHS and SEHS had 22 and 21 students, respectively, compared to a class of 78 at THS, 61 of whom graduated in four years. 

For GCSD Superintendent Ryan Kramer, the goal is not necessarily to have all students in and out of high school in the traditional four years period. Instead, it is to provide students with high school diplomas that will be critical in the job market, however long it takes.

“Not all students learn at the same rate,” he said. “For the large majority of students, a four year plan is a realistic plan, but to me there’s no less success if it takes a student five or six years to get their high school diploma than if a student did it in four years.” 

The Platte River School, an alternative high school new to the district this year, was established to provide individualized education for students who may not thrive in the traditional classroom setting. In an interview with the Telegram about PRS this past September, THS and PRS Principal Chase Christensen said the program serves 12 students who are learning through the online curriculum Edmentum. These students might opt in for a variety of reasons: working full time, suffering from social anxiety within the traditional high school setting or needing to work at their own pace.

“The number one reason, and really the only reason that the alternative school exists is to find a way to help the students that may not make it to the finish line find a way to make it to the finish line,” Christensen said in September.

Kramer said he anticipates PRS will have an impact on GCSD’s graduation rates moving forward.

Of 121 expected 2019-2020 cohort graduates, 68 were categorized as “lunch eligible,” according to WDE data. GCSD graduated 79.4% of lunch eligible students last year, a rate Kramer said signals a need for more support systems for GCSD’s vulnerable populations of students.

“We need to look at what types of structures we need to put in place for those students to make sure they come to the table with the same advantages as other students that are in their classrooms,” he said. “We have to put in extra assistance or extra scaffolding to assist them in reaching that goal of getting a diploma.”

Five of six students identified as homeless graduated last year, and seven of 11 students with an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) in the 2019-20 cohort graduated in four years, per WDE data.

The state’s 48 school districts combined posted a four-year graduation rate of 83.3% in 2019-20, from 82.1% in 2018-19, marking the seventh straight year of improvement, according to a WDE press release.

“When we work hand-in-hand with our school districts to make sure every student can succeed, good things happen,” said State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jillian Balow in the release. “Wyoming continues to set high standards for our graduates, which is reflected in our plan for the Every Student Succeeds Act, and evidenced in the graduation rate increase. That it’s our seventh-consecutive year for an increase demonstrates that our plans, our partnerships, are working.”

Kramer said graduation rates are one of the district’s most valuable data sets, along with college and career readiness.

“We want to see that continual improvement, and that’s why we took the step for Platte River School,” he said. “We were not comfortable with the data that we were seeing and we want to see an increase in them.”