Lafourche leads graduations with 10 percent increase

Something’s rising in Louisiana, and it’s not just the temperature.

It’s high school graduation rates.

Since 2005, Louisiana’s graduation rate has gone up 1.8 percent from 64.8 to 66.6 percent, but many schools in the Tri-parish area have improved at a far higher rate.

All three Lafourche Parish high schools, three of four Terrebonne Parish high schools and three of six St. Mary Parish high schools have increased in the past four years.

Berwick High School leads the way with a 78.2 graduation rate – a 7 percent increase from 2005. Following Berwick is South Lafourche High School at 76.7 percent and Terrebonne High School at 76.2 percent.

Central Lafourche High School showed the greatest improvement with a jump from 60.7 percent in 2005 to 72.6 percent in 2009.

Overall, Terrebonne Parish increased from 61.7 to 65.1 percent, St. Mary dropped from 68.7 to 67.2 percent and Lafourche Parish led the way with an improvement from 64.8 to 74.2 percent.

Lafourche Parish Public Schools Secondary Supervisor Blaine Degruise said Lafourche’s graduation rates have increased because the school system has focused on improving them in recent years.

“There’s a genuine focus on teaching the state comprehensive curriculum,” said Degruise. “With the stimulus money from the federal government, we did employ last year and again this year graduation coaches to meet with at risk kids who have academic and behavioral issues. That’s having some impact, because we’re engaged with them on a regular basis.”

He added Lafourche has adopted the state’s comprehensive counseling model that gives more one-on-one time between counselors and children kindergarten through 12th grade.

The state also provides a potential drop-out alert system.

“We have a document that’s generated every week showing who our at-risk kids are, and I think it has generated immediate attention and a greater focus on trying to help these students before they become failures,” said Degruise. “We also started a credit recovery program where students who failed a core course during the school year can take it after school or during the summer to recover that credit before they fall behind.”

But graduation improvement programs don’t just come from each parish’s school district. They come from the Louisiana Department of Education as well.

Debbie Schum, Louisiana’s executive director of High School Redesign, said graduation rates have increased over the past four years because of the many programs the state has introduced.

One called the 9th Grade Initiative works with 9th graders as well as 8th graders transitioning from middle to high school.

“It has programs that assist 8th graders about the skills, the know-how and the ability needed to achieve on a high school campus,” said Schum. “Schools using the program have a higher promotion rate from 9th to 10th grade than schools that do not use that.”

The state has also implemented a program called High Schools that Work in 22 schools in Louisiana. This program aims to build on the already increasing amount of career and technical education provided in high schools by encouraging students looking to go into trade-related fields to graduate.

“In the last three or four years there’s been a heavy concentration in increasing the number of industry based certifications that we offer,” she said. “That number has been on the constant increase, so we can connect students in what they want to do when they leave high school.”

One program that Schum said boasts a 93 percent graduation rate is Jobs for America’s Graduates (JAG).

“It’s a program that is a dropout prevention and recovery program that deters students in middle and high school and provides them with peer tutoring, peer mentoring and reading and math interventions if they’re needed,” she said.

Although Louisiana is making steps in the right direction, Schum said the state’s work is far from done.

“We are not satisfied until we have reached our goal. Our goal is to reach an 80 percent graduation rate by 2014, which means we have to step up the pace,” she said. “We are going to continue to work with districts to provide them with the assistance they need to help with implementation of the programs that make a difference.”