News Brief
Improvements in School Numbers Show that Graduation Matters
Char-Koosta News (09/12/13) Upham, LailaniThe Montana Office of Public Instruction (OPI) has awarded $450,000 over three years from the Dennis and Phyllis Washington Foundation to support community-based Graduation Matters initiatives, and OPI received an additional $15,000 to add to the challenge fund this year. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Denise Juneau, who helped kick off Graduation Matters this year with Gov. Steve Bullock, says, "These grants have helped jump start Graduation Matters initiatives across the state and are now supporting successful strategies that were implemented during the first year of the grant program. The statewide graduation rate is moving in the right direction due to the hard work happening at the local level across Montana." The initiative has offered grants to 25 Montana schools districts, and Graduation Matters aims to reduce the dropout rate by 10 percent and decrease the number of students who are credit-deficient by 15 percent. There are currently 33 Graduation Matters communities, and since Juneau took office in 2009, the dropout rate has fallen to 4.1 percent from 5.1 percent, and the graduation rate has increased to 83.9 percent from 80.7 percent.
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