How does Virginia define the term 'drop out' and how do they gather information?
Virginia Department of Education defines the term "dropout" in a high school setting as one who: fails to enroll by fall if they have attended a school in the previous school year, fails to attend classes throughout the school year, or has not been able to successfully graduate. In order to observe the process of high schools, Virginia must collect data from several different classes. A class is the amount of students who begin high school in the same year and are expected to end by the fourth year with a diploma, thus creating a class. Data is collected from each specific class annually to determine the improvements the state must have to increase the graduation percentage and to compare data from other states, including the country. This data becomes the Virginia On-Time Graduation Rate. Virginia determines a class’ graduation rate by dividing the amount of students who graduate by the original amount of students who were present.
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