Colorado’s Department of Education reports the state’s graduation rate is the highest it’s been in four years. The dropout rate is also improving.
This isn’t precisely the case throughout the Roaring Fork Valley.
The Roaring Fork School District has good news and bad news. Its graduation rate is better than the state’s. However the dropout rate is worse. There were 79 students that dropped out of the district’s high schools in 2016. That number has climbed gradually since 2013, when 47 dropped out.
Rob Stein is the superintendent of Roaring Fork Schools. He said the district works hard to stay in touch with dropouts through phone calls, home visits and case workers.
The 2.7 percent of the student population that dropped out in 2016 isn’t what’s most concerning to Stein.
“We don’t look so much at the dropout rate as we do the graduation rate,” he said.
What’s more concerning for Stein is the roughly 11 percent of the student body that didn’t graduate in 2016.
