Local graduation rates decreased in 2020, still better than state

The graduation rates for the two local school corporations decreased in 2020 compared to 2019 but those rates are still better than the state average. 
The Indiana Department of Education recently released the 2020 state graduation rates and that of the school corporations. Overall the state graduation rate improved slightly, but both Eastern Pulaski and West Central saw a decrease of around 4%. 
Eastern Pulaski and West Central both saw a decrease in the graduation rate. The 2020 graduation rate for both corporations still faired better than the state average but only by a small percentage. 
In 2020, the Eastern Pulaski graduation rate was 89.80% while in 2019 it was 93.48%. The West Central graduation rate was 88.33% compared to 92.86% in 2019. In 2018, the Eastern Pulaski graduation rate was 94.62% and the West Central graduation rate was 82.81%.    
Eastern Pulaski Community School Corporation Superintendent Dara Chezem said COVID-19 made a significant impact on the corporation in a number of ways including the graduation rate. 
Other factors the school corporation looks at is the number of students in the class and if there was a larger number of special education students who were awarded certificates of completion. 
  West Central Guidance Counselor Marci Kennedy said the pandemic had very little impact on the graduation rate but the small number of students in the class did. 
There were only 55 students in the 2020 class. Of those students about four of them were students who received certificates of completion.