Lincoln County and statewide high school graduation rates increased substantially in 2025

By Julia Silverman/The Oregonian/OregonLive

and the Lincoln Chronicle

Eighty-three percent of Oregon’s class of 2025 graduated on time from high school last June, the highest rate since the current measurement system was put into place 15 years ago, according to newly released data from the state Department of Education.

Oregon education officials hailed that rate — up 1.7 percent from the class of 2024 — as a notable milestone in the state’s otherwise sluggish attempts to recover from the pandemic’s widespread academic disruptions.

The class of 2025 was the first since the pandemic to go through all four years of high school without building closures or mask and distancing requirements.

In Lincoln County, the graduation rates for the countywide school district increased significantly for the 2025 school year. The district’s four-year graduation rate for all students increased to 88.1 percent, an increase of 6.1 percentage points from 2024 and 5 percentage points above the 2025 statewide rate of 83 percent.

Like every class since 2020, last spring’s graduating seniors did not have to demonstrate that they had mastered 10th grade level reading, writing and math skills, either via passing a series of standardized tests or by completing a standalone series of assignments designed by their teachers.

That’s because the Oregon Board of Education suspended that requirement in the pandemic’s wake, and then renewed that suspension through at least the class of 2028, or the current year’s sophomores, citing concerns that the system was creating unfair hurdles for students historically pushed to the margins of the public school system.

But change is in the air.

Charlene Williams, the director of the Oregon Department of Education, told reporters this week that she did not anticipate the suspension — highly controversial in some corners because of concerns that it artificially inflated graduation rates — would be renewed for a third time. Just what will replace it is not yet clear, especially as many other states, including Massachusetts and New York, are moving away from making graduation contingent upon an exit exam.

Williams suggested that Oregon is closely watching neighboring Washington, where the state Board of Education is working on a proposal for the 2027 legislative session to overhaul graduation requirements, broadening the number of ways students can show they’ve hit learning targets to better connect to real-world goals.

If the plans set by other states are any guide, that could mean anything from a career-technical education focus that connects to enrollment in a vocational school or a job to taking a certain number of advanced courses for college credit to hitting a certain score on a test like the SAT or the ACT.

Something needs to change, said Whitney Grubbs, executive director of Foundations for a Better Oregon, an influential schools nonprofit.

“Without having a clear diploma requirement that allows us to evaluate skills and knowledge in a way that is comparable across the state, we have eroded public trust in the diploma, and we have left ourselves open to folks wondering whether [the graduation rate] is going up because we have made it easier or because students are demonstrating the skills they need,” Grubbs said. “It is important to have both that individual demonstration and systemic accountability.”

She said Oregon should not start from scratch, reinventing the wheel and waiting years before putting new guidelines in place, especially since the Department of Education has already commissioned significant surveys of what Oregonians believe a high school diploma should reflect.

Instead, Grubbs said, the state should settle upon clear ideas of the skills it wants high schoolers to have and make a commitment to letting them show those skills in a variety of different ways.

In Lincoln County

Several groups within the Lincoln County School District experienced large gains, including multiracial students whose graduation rate increased by nearly 15 percentage points, and male students whose graduation rate increased by almost 9 percentage points.

Graduation rates also rose for students with disabilities, students experiencing poverty, homeless students, and English Learners, with several groups posting gains of six percentage points or more.

Waldport High School posted the largest year-over-year increase, with its four-year graduation rate rising to 90.2 percent, an improvement of nearly 13 points. Taft 7/12 increased to 93.2 percent, while Toledo High School rose to 89.3 percent. Newport High School continued to maintain a strong graduation rate above 92 percent.

The district’s two charter schools also scored well. Eddyville Charter had a 2025 graduation rate of 92 percent and Siletz Valley School a 91 percent rate.

Superintendent Majalise Tolan said the district and the state have made a concerted effort to increase graduation rates with a variety of extra programs.

“Graduation coaches, 9th grade-on-track teams, increased career and technical education offerings, and K-12 staff dedicated to a well-rounded education are all factors in student success,” Tolen said in a news release.

Tolan said the district continues to focus on early intervention, student engagement, and support systems to help students remain on track throughout their time in high schools.

State, local focus

For years, the Oregon public school system has had a singular focus on improving graduation rates, which only a dozen years ago stood at 72 percent of all students graduating on time, among the very worst rates in the nation.

Today, the state is closer to neighboring states, on par with Idaho and slightly behind California’s 87.5% rate. Nationwide graduation rate statistics are difficult to come by, having last been updated by the National Center for Education Statistics for the 2021-2022 school year, when the national average was 87 percent.

Currently, in order to graduate, Oregon students must complete 24 credits, including four years of English and three years apiece of math and science. Starting with next year’s graduates, Oregon students will also have to take a financial literacy class to graduate.

That’s more required credits than at least 32 other states, a statistic cited by Oregon Department of Education officials as proof of the heft of earning a high school diploma in the state. But a significant number of those credits are in electives, including health and physical education, similar to what is required in neighboring California and Washington.

Other states — including Michigan, Ohio, Rhode Island, Delaware and Louisiana — require students to take four years of math to graduate, while Alabama and Georgia also require four years of science classes.

Oregon’s rising graduation rates do represent a rare bright spot among education statistics in a state which has a stubbornly high rate of student absenteeism and troublingly low levels of elementary and middle school students showing that they are doing work that would earn them at least a B on state reading and math standardized tests.

The new graduation data also pointed to progress for groups of students who have traditionally graduated at rates below the state average, including students in special education classes, Indigenous students and students in foster care. The graduation rate for all three of those groups grew by more than 3 percent, even though it remains 9 percentage points below state averages for Indigenous students, 11 percentage points below the state average for special education students and a whopping 29 percentage points below for students living in foster care.

One of the state’s most potent tools to get students through high school in four years is its investment in career-technical education programs, which offer practical, hands-on training in areas from construction to medical fields to education. More than 97 percent of students who took a three-year sequence of career-technical education classes graduated on time, the data shows.

Local graduation numbers

Biggest Lincoln County School District gains with 4-year graduation rate:

• All students: 88.1%, up from 82.0% (+6.1 points)
• Multiracial students: 86.1%, up from 71.4% (+14.7 points)
• Male students: 87.2%, up from 78.3% (+8.9 points)
• English learners: 97.3% up from 87.0% ( +11.2 points)
• Students with disabilities: 77.3%, up from 70.3% (+7.0 points)
• Students experiencing poverty: 80.6%, up from 74.4% (+6.9 points)
• Homeless students: 81.7%, up from 75.5% (+6.2 points)
• CTE participants: 93.5%, up from 89.0% (+4.5 points)

Biggest school 4-year graduation gains

• Waldport High School: 90.2%, up from 77.4% (+12.8 points)
• Taft High School: 93.2%, up from 85.6% (+7.6 points)
• Toledo Senior High School: 89.3%, up from 82.4% (+6.9 points)
• Newport High School: 92.4%, essentially flat from 92.6%
• Siletz Valley School: 91%, up from 80% (+11 points)

5-year graduation rate highlights

• Toledo Senior High School: 87.9%, up from 80.4% (+7.5 points)
• Newport High School: 92.6%, up from 88.8% (+3.8 points)
• LCSD all students: 83.8%, up from 83.3% (+0.5 points)