LYNN — High school graduation rates in Lynn Public Schools increased to 83.1 percent in 2022, according to Deputy Superintendent Molly Cohen. This is up from between 2014 and 2019, when graduation rates were consistently between 73 and 76 percent. Dropout rates among Hispanic students remain the highest in the district, while multi-race dropout rates increased from 2019.
Cohen focused on comparing 2022 with 2019, saying that 2020 and 2021 were “atypical years” due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“This is not what we aspire to be, but is a jump from what we were trending before the pandemic,” Cohen said in her presentation about graduation rates to the School Committee Thursday evening.
While the rates are on an upward trend, there is a “troubling gap” between different populations in the schools. Hispanic and Latino students are the largest population in the district, with a 80.1 percent graduation rate, while Asian students, the smallest population in the district, have a 97.1 percent graduation rate.
“This concerning gap is a national trend. What’s interesting here in Lynn is the performance of the African-American/Black population at 88.7 percent, which outperforms the white subgroup at 87.1 percent, and that is not a national trend,” Cohen said.
Dropout rates were also reviewed in the presentation. In 2019 the rate was 4.7 percent, and in 2022 it was 4.3 percent. In 2021 it dropped to 3.1 percent, which Cohen said can be attributed to the pandemic.
“You were in remote [learning], you had less material due due to the fact that you didn’t have a teacher teaching, and we were hyper-focused on students’ actual physical and mental health because we weren’t with them,” Cohen said in an interview Friday.
2022 was better for dropout rates when compared to 2017, 2018, and 2019, but it is not where the district wants to be, she said during the presentation.
“We aspire within one to two years to cut this rate in half,” Cohen said.
The dropout rates for Hispanic and Latino students are the highest in the district but have decreased from 2019, going from 6.6 percent to 5.4 percent. Multi-race student dropout rates rose from 3.3 percent in 2019 to 4.2 percent in 2022.
In 2022, 11.1 percent of English language learners dropped out, a drop from 13.7 percent in 2019.
“What is happening in our instruction and curriculum choices that is hitting home for our Asian, Black, and white students that is not landing for our Hispanic and multi-race students?” Cohen said.
Cohen said she and the district looked at factors that may be pulling or pushing students out of school.
Some of the potential push-out factors that were considered include a lack of support for English Language learners, bullying and harassment, and social isolation. Potential pull-out factors, on the other hand, could include adolescent pregnancy, poor economic circumstance, caretaking responsibilities, and opportunities for employment.
There are initiatives in Lynn Public Schools to respond to these factors, Cohen said. She said this school year, the district improved Welcome Center practices by increasing communication, and created attendance and discipline workshops.
“I think an important piece of the story is how this is an entire community dilemma and that we are really building up our family engagement strategies to work with all of the members of the community that support students,” Cohen said in an interview. “The pull-out, push-out factors extend beyond just that one individual student and so we all need to work together in order to make education more accessible for students.”
