Pasadena Unified Expects Final Graduation Rate to Increase This School Year

A report to the Pasadena Unified School District Board on Thursday stated that the District’s goal was to increase the graduation rate to 90% this school year (2023-2024) and by 2.5% or more for each following year, ending up at 95% or higher in 2025-2026.

Continuous Improvement & Performance Data Management Coordinator Dr. David Rennie said the graduation rate for this school year won’t be finalized until Aug. 15.

An earlier report to the Board in February had disclosed that 88.7% of class 2021-2022 graduated on time. This dropped to 84.8% in the 2022-2023 school year.

“We are setting an ambitious target of trying to jump 5% by the end of the 2024 school year that we are currently in, and then moving another 5% at least over the next two years to end at 95% or higher. That would put us above the state graduation rate,” said Rennie.

Aside from the graduation rate, the District is also targeting the District College/Career Readiness Indicator to increase from 45% in 2022-2023 to 60% or higher in 2025-2026.

According to the report, the District’s goal this school year is that 55% or more of 9th graders will be successful in science and math.

The District has surpassed this goal. According to the report, the District recorded that 63% of ninth graders were successful in science and math this school year 2023-2024.

The District also anticipates that 43% of Multilingual Learners enrolled in 12th grade during the 2023-2024 school year will be prepared as College and Career Ready as a “CTE Pathway Completer” and 42% of students with disability enrolled in 12th grade during the 2023-2024 school year will be prepared as College and Career Ready as a “CTE Pathway Completer.”

Board Members urged the District to look beyond the numbers and the reasons why some students are not graduating on time.

Dr. Helen Hill, Interim Chief Academic Officer, emphasized the challenges of measuring student performance and the complexity of assessing human outcomes, highlighting the limitations of solely focusing on quantitative metrics. “I don’t necessarily believe that we are in this state of extreme non-performance,” Hill said. “I do think that we could get into a much larger conversation about how we measure performance and how we represent what is meeting standard, what is not, which is why I think that we’re trying to speak to almost a portfolio of ways to identify how students are doing because it’s broader than a test score and it’s broader than even a CTE completion. It’s broader than a lot of things.”

“I assume or hope that most of my fellow Board Members would be interested as well if we could see data or a data analysis summary of what is keeping our graduation rate where it is,” said Board President Kimberly Kenne. “When I have conversations with people I can’t really give them the reasons why we are where we are. I can see that we’re there. I just don’t know why.”

Board Member Patrick Cahalan echoed the same sentiments.

“I think what’s useful to us as a Board is to know the underlying root causes, what’s the impediment for the kids to do better? Because those might be things that we can address either through reallocation of resources or any one of a number of other factors,” said Cahalan. “If we focus too much on the number, in my experience anyway, even when the number does change, the results aren’t necessarily better,” he added.

“I would like to have a more in-depth conversation about what we can do as a Board to remove impediments for the students,” Cahalan added.

“This conversation could be the starting point for us to develop a vision around student achievement,” Board Member Jennifer Hall Lee remarked.

In response to the Board, Dr. Helen Hill said there are two work groups currently studying potential areas the District can improve on to increase the graduation rate. The first group is examining whether the District is enabling students to take all the necessary courses to meet diploma requirements versus A-G requirements. The second group is focusing on the transition to alternative education.

The alternative education transition work group has already developed three agreements to be implemented in the upcoming school year. The graduation requirements group will present recommendations as a package during the school year, aiming to adjust requirements for the following year’s incoming class.

According to Hill, the District has increased credit recovery opportunities for students throughout the school year to increase the District’s graduation rate.

In the school year 2022-2023, Rose City High School has the lowest graduation rate at 47.3%. Center for Independent Study Academy was second to the lowest with 63.9% graduation rate.

The three high schools with the highest graduation rate are Marshall Fundamental (96.2%), Pasadena High School (93.5%) and John Muir High School (92.4%).