Report: GDOE graduation rates rise while dropout rate shrinks

HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — Graduation numbers are up and the dropout rate for public high school students is down.

The Annual State of Public Education Report for school year 2022–2023 shows that the Guam Department of Education is headed in the right direction on the road to recovery, with continued improvement seen in the number of graduating students.

Last school year, a total of 1,739 high school seniors graduated, representing an increase to 90.7%, compared to 90% in school year 2021-2022.

The number of graduates of each high school is as follows:

• George Washington High School: 271
• John F. Kennedy High School: 364
• Okkodo High School: 231
• Simon Sanchez High School: 291
• Southern High School: 221
• Tiyan High School: 214
• JP Torres Success Academy: 47

The report indicates the graduation rate is an improvement from pre-pandemic rates. In school year 2018-2019, the rate was 87.3%.

According to the report, the graduation cohort rate answers the question: What proportion of those who leave school leave as graduates?

“The formula uses data pertaining to graduates and dropouts over four years,” the ASPER states.

GDOE also reported a decline in the number of high school student dropouts.

The ASPER shows that the dropout rate decreased from 322, or 3.6%, in school year 2021-2022, to 18, or 0.2%, in school year 2022-2023.

A dropout is noted in the report as “a student who was enrolled in a GDOE high school sometime during the given school year and, after enrollment, stopped attending school” for various reasons.

Dropouts are counted as students who stopped attending school without transferring to another school, those who stopped attending because they were incapacitated, those who graduated from high school or completed an alternative high school program within six years of their first day of enrollment in ninth grade, and those who stopped attending because they were expelled or prohibited from the continuation of schooling.

According to GDOE, the dropout rate is subject to “further verification.”