TAMPA, Fla. \u2014\u00a0Florida set a record in education with a 92.2% graduation rate for the 2024-25 school year, which is the highest in state history. Hillsborough County Schools is also celebrating a new record with a 90.9% graduation rate. The superintendent, Van Ayres, says it\u2019s a huge accomplishment and breaks all previous records.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
Florida set a state record in education with a 92.2% graduation rate for the 2024-2025 school year
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Hillsborough County Schools is also celebrating a new record with a 90.9% graduation rate
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Other record-breaking districts in Tampa Bay included Pinellas with 93.4%, Citrus County with 94.1%, Pasco with 96.9% and Sarasota County schools with a 94.3% graduation rate<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we began this journey, we had a 70% graduation rate in Hillsborough County, so the goal of 90 seemed so far away, and so we just kept working at it, working at it,\u201d said Ayres.<\/p>\n
He says that reaching a 90.9% graduation rate certainly didn\u2019t happen overnight; it took about 10 years, and it is the result of a strategic plan.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been very intentional about every decision we make between juniors and seniors getting free ACT\/SAT testing … we have graduation meetings where we\u2019re meeting with schools, tracking students to make sure they\u2019re on track, we\u2019ve just been very, very intentional,\u201d said Ayres.<\/p>\n
Part of the plan to get students to graduation included tracking their progress and intervening early if they veered off course, and implementing a Graduation Task Force that worked with students and families directly.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In addition to Hillsborough County, record-breaking districts in Tampa Bay included Pinellas with 93.4%, Citrus County with 94.1%, Pasco with 96.9% and Sarasota County schools with a 94.3% graduation rate.<\/p>\n
Polk County Schools, and Manatee County Schools have the lowest graduation rates in the Tampa Bay Area with 87.7% in Polk, and\u00a087.6% in Manatee.<\/p>\n
Ayres says that with more rigorous benchmarks than ever before, districts are focusing more on reaching each and every student.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve just been very, very intentional where I think in the past, and many years back, you might not have seen that intentionality behind graduation rate and making sure students are walking across that stage,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Ayres said that in Hillsborough County, they\u2019ve also focused on making sure every student is college or career-ready when they graduate, and not trying to force students all into one box.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. \u2014\u00a0Florida set a record in education with a 92.2% graduation rate for the 2024-25 school year,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":118468,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[4996,9995,274,113,5711,276,115,135,137,136,278,835],"class_list":["post-118467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-app-education","tag-app-latest-education-stories","tag-app-top-stories","tag-education","tag-fallon-silcox","tag-hillsborough-county","tag-news","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-top-stories","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118467\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}