More Hillsborough County high schools earned A or B grades this year than ever before.
According to a report released Wednesday by the Florida Department of Education, 25 of 27 Hillsborough County high schools earned A or B grades. That’s 93 percent, up from 79 percent last year. Statewide, 78 percent of high schools earned A or B grades this year.
Five high schools (Brandon, Chamberlain, Plant City, Spoto, and Steinbrenner) earned A grades for the first time.
The high school grades are released later than the grades for elementary and middle schools (they were released in June) because the high school grade calculations include graduation rates and other data.
The complete list of school grades can be found at the Florida Department of Education website at http://schoolgrades.fldoe.org.
Hillsborough County public schools and offices will be closed Monday, December 19, through Friday, December 30. Regular hours will resume Monday, January 2, 2012.
The graduation rate for Hillsborough County Public Schools students improved to 84.3 percent in 2011, an increase of 2 percentage points over last year and more than 4 percentage points higher than the state average of 80.1 percent.
Hillsborough’s graduation rate is the highest among Florida’s largest school districts. Since 2006, the school district’s graduation rate has steadily improved by 9.8 percentage points.
The 74.2 percent graduation rate for Hillsborough County African American students is 5.8 percent above the state average, while the 80.8 percent graduation rate for Hispanic students in Hillsborough County 3.5 percent higher than the state average.
“It’s gratifying to see steady improvement in our graduation rate year after year,’’ said Superintendent MaryEllen Elia. “This has been and continues to be a priority of ours.”
Hillsborough’s dropout rate also continues to move in the right direction. The dropout rate remains below 1 percent at 0.8 percent. That represents a decrease of 1.3 percent since 2006. The dropout rate remains more than a percentage point lower than the state average of 1.9 percent.
The Florida Department of Education released the graduation rate and dropout rate information on Monday. For more information visit the DOE website at http://www.fldoe.org/eias/eiaspubs/pubstudent.asp.
