Courtney Brown is a senior flag football player at Stanton College Prep who was named 'most athletic' by her peers in the senior class. She plays flag football and soccer for the Blue Devils. | Will Brown, Jacksonville Today
Published on January 10, 2025 at 3:13 pm
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The high school class of 2024 achieved the highest graduation rate in state history, the Florida Department of Education announced this week.
Duval County Public Schools saw its graduation rate spike to a record high of 90.9% in 2024. That number surpasses the 90.2% of students who graduated in 2020.
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In 2020 and 2021, the Florida Department of Education did not require students to pass a standardized test to graduate high school.
Duval’s non-pandemic high was achieved in 2023 when 87.2% of students earned diplomas.
Raines High School in Northwest Jacksonville saw its graduation leap from 94% to 98%.
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Last month, Raines Principal Vincent Hall told Jacksonville Today that raising the school’s graduation rate required the commitment of the entire faculty and staff since his arrival a dozen years ago.
“We always say that kids learn, every day. Not in the same way, but they learn,” Hall said. “So, we’ve just started really looking at our data and started really providing those remediary efforts where kids are able to come to after-school tutorials, in-school tutorials through elective class pullouts, Saturday schools, small-group instructions inside the classrooms and really homing into what those kids need.”
Elsewhere in the district, three traditional public schools graduated 100% of their students: Douglas Anderson School of the Arts, Stanton College Prep and Andrew Jackson.
Friday morning, in an appearance at Trinity Christian Academy, a private, Christian school on the Westside, Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz attributed the peaking graduation rate to the school choice options available to parents and students.
“That has happened because despite the fact that we have had people that have wanted to lower the bar, because they felt like students couldn’t make it. Under Gov. (Ron) DeSantis’ leadership we took the opposite approach,” Diaz said. “We raised the bar and the expectations, and our students are very resilient and met us there.”
Diaz said Florida needs to continue its commitment to providing options for families and students. He highlighted the gains by Black, Hispanic and economically disadvantaged students.
Statewide, 92.4 % of white students, 85.3% of Black students, 89% of Hispanic/Latino students and 97.2% of Asian students earned diplomas. Additionally, 86.2% of students in Florida who receive free or reduced lunch graduated in 2024. Duval County Public Schools exceeded the statewide percentage in all five of those metrics.
Graduation rates elsewhere
St. Johns County led Northeast Florida with a 95% graduation rate. Meanwhile, Clay County graduated 93.3% of its students; Nassau County had a 91.8% graduation rate; and Putnam County watched 91.2% of its students graduate. Flagler and Baker counties — where students graduated at 89% and 83.1% respectively — were the only districts in the region where the graduation rate was below the statewide average.
Baker County’s 83.1% graduation rate is more than a 6 percent increase from 2023 and its highest non-pandemic rate in at least a decade.
