For the first time since California launched a new student tracking system three years ago, Sonoma County has posted better high school graduation rates than the state average.
In Sonoma County, 79.2 percent of students who started high school in 2008-09 graduated with their class in 2012, compared with 78.5 percent statewide.
The numbers, released by the California Department of Education on Tuesday, show Sonoma County improved its graduation rate by 2.6 percentage points over the previous year. Latino students improved by 4.4 percentage points.
Despite those gains, an achievement gap remains between whites and ethnic and racial groups. In Sonoma County, 72.6 percent of Latino students graduated in four years, compared with 84.7 percent of whites. Statewide, 73.2 percent of Latino students earned a diploma in four years, compared with 86.4 percent of whites.
In Santa Rosa City Schools, Sonoma County's largest school district, 80.6 percent of students graduate in four years, but a sharp achievement gap exists between the graduation rates of whites and Latinos, who graduate at a rate of 87.5 percent and 72.3 percent, respectively.
It is the largest gap in Sonoma County.
"Certainly we still have more work to do," said first-year Superintendent Socorro Shiels.
"I think it's important and I think it really is one of the outcomes we can all agree on: that we want our students graduating from high school," she said.
"This isn't a senior high school teachers issue," she said. "This is a pre-K, traditional kinder through 12th grade, collective responsibility."
But state officials lauded the gains made across all subgroups as a victory, especially amid some of the deepest funding cuts to education in recent memory.
"We have a long way to go in all of these sectors," Tom Torlakson, state superintendent of schools, said Tuesday. "We'd like to see the statewide average move up to 80 to 85 percent," and potentially 90 percent.
As graduation rates climb, dropout rates fall.
In Sonoma County, 12.4 percent of Sonoma County students who started high school in 2008-09 dropped out. The dropout rate in California was 13.2 percent.
The numbers released Tuesday mark the third year state officials have tracked both graduation and dropout rates using the state's California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement System, or CALPADS.
The system tracks students with individual identification numbers so if a pupil leaves one campus without notice but eventually winds up on another, the state tracking system will register the change and not penalize one school with a dropout number.
It also tracks students who are neither graduates nor dropouts, but non-diploma special education pupils, those who passed the general educational development exam or who are still enrolled in school after four years -- 7.5 percent of the group tracked in the latest study.
"We think this is a good piece of accountability and transparency," said Deputy Superintendent Deborah Sigman of the California Department of Education.
In Sonoma County, Petaluma led all districts among those serving high school students in graduation rates at 90.9 percent, with a dropout rate of 4 percent. West Sonoma County had a graduation rate of 90.6 percent, followed by Healdsburg at 90.4 percent.
Petaluma City Schools long has fostered a multifaceted alternative education program that gives students second and third chances to graduate if they did not succeed in the conventional high school campuses of Petaluma or Casa Grande high schools, according to Superintendent Steve Bolman.
"By virtue of having more alternative education opportunities, our comprehensive schools look better because of that," Bolman said.
"It's something this district takes great pride in," he said, adding that other districts have closed their alternative programs.
At Petaluma's San Antonio High School campus, nearly 80 percent of teen parents graduate. By contrast, the state graduation rate for that subgroup is 38 percent, according to San Antonio Principal Lyn Moreno.
"They are real resilient kids," she said. "Many adults couldn't deal with what they are dealing with and still, we get them to graduate."
The gap between the graduation rates of boys and girls is larger in Sonoma County than it is statewide. Locally, 83.6 percent of girls graduate in four years, compared with 74.9 percent of boys. Across California, girls graduate at a rate of 82.7 percent, while boys are at 74.5.
Staff Writer Kerry Benefield writes an education blog at extracredit.blogs.pressdemocrat.com.
She can be reached at 526-8671, kerry.benefield@press democrat.com or on Twitter @benefield.
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