School Division Achieves Highest
On-Time Graduation Rate in VA

POSTED: 5:37 p.m. EDT, October 08, 2008
By: FCCPS Communications

Falls Church City Public Schools finished first among all school divisions in the state in the number of students who graduated on time with a diploma, according to data reported today by the Virginia Department of Education.  The 2008 FCCPS graduation rate was 97.6 percent, well above the state average of 81.3 percent.

“This is a tremendous achievement for our school division,” Superintendent Lois Berlin said.  “This means that nearly all of the seniors in our school division graduated with a diploma in four years.  Our hope is that those who did not graduate on time will remain enrolled.  The value of the diploma is not diminished by the time it takes to earn it.  The important thing is to finish.”

Here’s how the FCCPS compared to other school divisions in the region:

Among individual high schools in the state, George Mason High School’s on-time graduation rate was the fifth highest in the state:

Thomas Jefferson is a public Governors school specializing in science and technology.  All others listed are regular public high schools.  Virginia has 327 public high schools and 131 public school divisions.

The Virginia On-Time Graduation Rate is a cohort graduation rate that indicates the percentage of students who earn a Virginia Board of Education-approved diploma within four years of entering ninth grade for the first time. It is calculated using a formula endorsed in a 2005 compact signed by the nation’s governors and subsequently adopted by the Virginia General Assembly and Board of Education.

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