BRASHER FALLS - St. Lawrence Central School Superintendent Stephen M. Putman says they’re expecting to see a graduation rate this year of about 80 percent, a jump up from the 61.1 percent graduation rate for the 2007 Cohort that graduated in 2011.

“By our calculations, it appears that our graduation for this year is going to be nearly 80 percent. It may even hit 80 percent,” Mr. Putman said.

The state Education Department last week released Cohort graduation rates for the 2010-11 school year. Of the 90 Cohort students - those who entered ninth grade together in 2007 and were expected to graduate together in 2011 - 61.1 percent graduated with a Regents diploma with advanced designation, Regents diploma without advanced designation or local diploma.

The district’s 2006 Cohort that graduated together in 2010 had a 71.6 graduation rate.

SED officials said 21.1 percent of the 2007 Cohort students received a Regents diploma with advanced designation, 31.1 percent received a Regents diploma without advanced designation and 8.9 percent received a local diploma.

Another 6.7 percent received an IEP diploma. However, those students are not counted as graduates. Another 12.2 percent of the students were still enrolled, 7.8 percent transferred to a GED preparation program and 11.1 percent dropped out.

“The bottom line is, no, we’re not satisfied with that. Clearly it’s a disappointing number,” Mr. Putman said.

However, he expects the numbers to improve based on initiatives they’ve started in the district.

“We’ve been working on a lot of things over the last seven years. We’ve put a lot more emphasis on reading in the elementary and middle school grades and non-fiction writing. Even, for example, the tests in mathematics and science now, it’s so much different than they were say 20 years ago. Jus reading and understanding questions requires higher literacy skills,” Mr. Putman said.

“We think that our kids that are coming up in the next few classes are going to start showing the benefits of those activities. Looking at our current senior class, our spreadsheet shows we’re at or just shy of 80 percent. That’s certainly significant progress. I feel like with the actions we’ve taken over the last several years we’re on the verge of showing some significant progress” he added.

The graduation rate is defined as the number of students in a Cohort who earned a Regents or local diploma divided by the total number of students in that Cohort.

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