MVCSD records highest graduation rate in decades

The Mount Vernon City School District’s 2023-2024 graduation rate climbed to a level not seen in more than two decades. The projected graduation rate – 79.9% – increased 5.6 percentage points over the previous year. The District utilized data to provide feedback for targeted progress monitoring and intervention to make this increase possible. Targeted monitoring and intervention also allowed faculty and staff to foster a connection with students to help them succeed.  

Graduation rates will become official when the New York State Education Department releases its numbers.  

Mount Vernon High School registered its highest graduation rate since 2000, with 82.7% of students graduating. Denzel Washington School of the Arts graduated 93.5% of its students and Mount Vernon STEAM Academy had a graduation rate of 90.7%.  

Rebecca Turner Academy graduated seven of its 37 students for a 21.9% rate. Most of these students would not have graduated had they not had the opportunity to attend RTA. 436 students graduated from the District in total. 

“This graduation rate improvement is a source of great pride for the District, and it shows that we are on the right track academically,” said Acting Superintendent Dr. K. Veronica Smith. “Through intense data-management, personalized instruction, and the commitment of our teachers and staff, we were able to do something as a District that has not been accomplished in decades. We are not going to stop here, and we will work persistently to continue this trend. Our goal is always for every student in Mount Vernon to receive a diploma, and we have made tremendous progress toward that goal.” 

Assistant Superintendent for Pupil Personnel Services Dr. Marie Gaboton-Swift presented the graduation rates at the Board of Education meeting on Tuesday, September 17, 2024.  

She credited much of these improvements to data monitoring and implementing interventions with students based on data. During Dr. Smith’s tenure as Associate Superintendent of Pupil Personnel Services, the District began monitoring seniors before June, and that has continued and expanded. 

Throughout the District, data is used heavily in how programs are implemented and changed. There are targeted performance monitoring, intervention and data analysis and monitoring. This use of data gives administrators and teachers a firm understanding of what needs to be done to further improve.  

At the root of this growth was a combined effort of the four high school principals, their teams and teachers, the Pupil Personnel Services Department, and the Technology Department.  

“The other thing that we have done is we have had targeted intervention,” said Dr. Gaboton-Swift. “We are trying to be very purposeful with after school credit recovery, with Saturday school Regents prep. We also have target progress monitoring, even at the District office with transcript reviews for grades nine through 12, which was started by Dr. Smith.” 

The District has put an emphasis on social emotional learning (SEL) as well. Most counselors have interns, provided for by the Mercy HEART Grant. The interns provide additional staff to handle tasks in the office, and counselors can spend more time focusing on students.  

Mount Vernon High School, which has been utilizing coordination of services teams (COST), has been a major factor in the District’s graduation rate improvements. The school’s graduation rate is typically below the District level, but it is above the District rate of 79.9% for 2023-2024. 

The COST system is similar to the Multi-tiered System of Support (MTSS) that is used in other schools. Principal Dr. Pauline Pearce and Assistant Principal Tiffany Izzo joined Dr. Gaboton-Swift to explain how they made advancements at their school. 

“In those teams we look at the data,” said Ms. Izzo. “We pull data on attendance, trends in attendance, academics and SEL. We collected a lot through talking to the teachers and talking to our support staff that are part of that team. In that team, we really worked on reaching out to the individual students in a very personalized way that was focused on where their attendance was going, what do they need to graduate and where we were seeing their grades going.” 

The coordination of services teams consist of faculty and staff from the school that work together to ensure that students are making the progress they need to graduate. If a student needs to go to counseling, get extra afternoon help or make a call, safety monitors are helping them as members of the support team. Each grade level at MVHS has their own support team led by an assistant principal. 

“At the New Mount Vernon High School, we are indeed building community because there is not one stakeholder in that school who is not participating in all of the initiatives that we have put in place,” said Dr. Pearce. “We are all working together for the betterment of our children, and we are extremely, extremely proud of the work that we are doing.” 

Mount Vernon High School takes a personalized approach to rewarding students in order to keep them motivated. Students receive rewards for their grades and attendance, which are the two biggest factors in a student's success. One reward that seniors can earn this year is the ability to eat off campus for lunch. 
 
Meticulous data-keeping has also allowed the District to reduce graduation rate discrepancies seen in past years. For example, if a student moved to a new school district but was discharged improperly, they were counted as a drop-out. This negatively impacted graduation rates, and it has been corrected with new registration and discharge processes and training.  

Through data analysis, personalized plans for students and committed teachers, the District has been able to make steady improvements to its graduation rates over the last several years. 

Click here to view the full presentation.