However, more Bronx School of Law and Finance students — 11.2 percent — were on par with the “ELA/Math threshold than the 5.1 percent who earned an advanced diploma. Principal Evan Schwartz said he didn’t read too much into the data because his school was so small that one or two students could dramatically alter statistics.
“I don’t think it’s even close to a fair evaluation of the quality of the school though … We’ve had students register at Fordham Plaza and they never come here. We finally get them taken off our register, but they now count against us,” he said.
Most area schools boasted four-year graduation rates above the citywide rate of 60.9 percent and the district-wide rate of 64.2 percent.
But John F. Kennedy High School reported one of the lowest four-year graduation rates in the district: 41.3 percent. Of those who didn’t graduate, 4.7 percent transferred to GED programs and 28.4 percent were considered to have dropped out.
Principal Lisa Luft said about half of the students at JFK are English language learners [ELLs] or are disabled, two categories of students that often require more than four years to graduate.
“If you look at the six-year graduation rate, it goes up exponentially.” Ms. Luft said.
The JFK campus also housed some schools with the highest graduation rates including Marble Hill School for International Studies, which graduated 81.9 percent of its students within four years, down slightly from last year’s 90 percent four-year graduation rate.
Both specialized high schools — The Bronx High School of Science and the High School for American Studies at Lehman College — graduated all ninth-graders who entered the school in 2007 within four years.
RKA was close behind, with a four-year graduation rate of 87 percent, down from 90 percent last year. No RKA student transferred to a GED program, but 4.3 percent where considered to have dropped out.
