School leaders in Dodge City USD 443 were flummoxed. For years, the district had maintained respectable graduation rates — great, even, for a district with high rates of at-risk and low-income students. With graduation percentages in the mid to upper 80s, Dodge City USD 443 most years trailed the average statewide graduation rate, but not by much. What didn’t make sense, though, at least not initially, was the dismal rate at which students went on to pursue any kind of education or training after high school, a measure called post-secondary effectiveness that the Kansas State Department of Education started tracking in 2015. In Dodge City, only about 1 in 5 students who entered Dodge City High School as freshman enrolled in any kind of post-high school education, per a five-year average of the first half of the 2010s. … Why weren’t students doing anything else after graduating high school? School leaders had a few ideas, and after Superintendent Fred Dierksen arrived to the district six years ago, Dodge City USD 443 began turning its rates around, nearly doubling its post-secondary success rate to 40.4% in the latest data collection. It’s a roadmap to success that other Kansas school districts should look at, Education Commissioner Randy Watson previously told the Kansas State Board of Education. Here’s how the district made it happen.
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