5:22 am on Sunday July 15, 2012
| Posted by Ken Hawkins
S.C. high school dropout rates continue to improve; Beaufort area worsens
Flickr user JMaz Photo
In an annual report released by the South Carolina Department of Education, the number of teens dropping out of high school continued to fall — though by a slight margin, however Beaufort County rates increased.
During the 2009-10 school year 2.9% of students dropped out, in 2010-11 2.8% dropped out, a 0.1% point improvement.
During the two years prior the rate fell by 0.5% points consecutively.
The drop was seen across gender and race groups, with only non-white females holding steady at 2.5%. And the highest dropout categories were students with disabilities (4.4%), Hispanic students (3.7%), and economically disadvantaged students (3.3%).
Locally the dropout rate was mixed:
- Beaufort: 2.3%, was 1.7%
- Jasper: 1.8%, was 2.1%
