An important community announcement from our Chamber Member: Hillsborough County Public Schools (HCPS) is excited to announce the district’s high school graduation rate for the 2023–2024 academic year increased by 1.8 percentage points over the prior year, to an impressive 88%.
In a year when the graduation benchmarks were more rigorous than we have seen in the history of the State of Florida, our students and educators responded. This past year, the state increased the testing benchmarks, making it more difficult to meet graduation requirements. The SAT required concordant score increased from 430 to 480, after years of postponing the change due to COVID.
Students and educators in our district rose to the occasion, surpassing the state's growth rate. While we are pleased with our overall graduation rate, we are especially proud of the performance of our key demographic student groups:
- English Language Learners increased 3.1 percentage points
- Hispanic students increased 2.2 percentage points
- Black students increased 1.8 percentage points
District leaders congratulate students and staff at the following high schools for their remarkable achievements in increasing their graduation rates:
- Simmons Career Center increased 16.5 percentage points
- South County Career Center increased 16.2 percentage points
- Jefferson High School increased 6.7 percentage points
- King High School increased 6.6 percentage points
- Brandon High School increased 5.8 percentage points
- Lennard High School increased 5.7 percentage points
- Middleton High School increased 4.2 percentage points
- Hillsborough High School increased 3.3 percentage points
Under the exceptional leadership of Superintendent Van Ayres, district and school staff created better alignment of our systems and structures to account for every student. School and district staff customized instruction and interventions to make sure students reached the ultimate goal of obtaining their high school diploma.
District leaders congratulate the students and staff at 12 of our high schools for earning a graduation rate above 95%:
- Alonso High School
- Jefferson High School
- Leto High School
- Newsome High School
- Plant High School
- Plant City High School
- Riverview High School
- Sickles High School
- Spoto High School
- Steinbrenner High School
- Strawberry Crest High School
- Tampa Bay Tech High School
“Through the guidance and leadership of the School Board, our goal is to support our students in every possible way as they strive to earn their high school diploma. By enhancing our organizational alignment, our staff is dedicated to helping every student at every school graduate, which opens doors to both college and career opportunities,” said Superintendent Van Ayres.
The district has deployed several strategies to improve the graduation rates including:
- Free testing opportunities and preparations for state assessments like SAT, ACT, CLT, PSAT, and FAST
- Junior and Senior Academic Checks
- Credit Recovery Programs
- Quarterly Graduation Meetings with site-based teams to review student progress
- GAP (Graduation Advancement Program) to help get students back on track to graduate
- Summer Learning Programs
- Adult Education Support
Superintendent Ayres also created a Graduation Task Force, a cross-divisional internal group of leaders who meet monthly focused on individual student performance, support for students experiencing housing instability or homelessness, and an increase in parent communication to ensure families know and understand the graduation requirements.
Families can ensure they know and understand the graduation requirements by visiting the Graduation Requirements link.
For more information about Florida’s 2023-2024 graduation rate, click here.