Andover Public Schools officials continued to use incorrect class of 2022 graduation rates for more than a year after Andover High School administrators alerted them of the error in a July 2023 memo obtained by Andover News under the Massachusetts Public Records law.
The lower graduation numbers were the topic of a talk Magda Parvey gave to staff at the start of the school year in August 2023 and a 30-minute discussion with the Andover School Committee the following month. They were also included in a September 2024 note from Parvey to families and staff, more than a year after July 2023, when former AHS assistant principal Scott Darlington wrote a memo explaining the graduation rate was incorrect.
APS said Tuesday it “regrets the error” in a statement published in its entirety at the bottom of this article. The district also outlined how it has changed its reporting practices when submitting data to state regulators.
Special Education Students Were Miscoded
Over the past 10 years, AHS’s graduation rate has been between 95 and 98 percent. But when the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education released the rate for the class of 2022 in the spring of 2023, it dropped unexpectedly to 92.4 percent from 97.6 percent in 2021.
In the July 19, 2023 note addressed to former Principal Caitlin Brown and cc’ed to Superintendent Magda Parvey, Assistant Superintendent Julie Riley, special services executive director Nancy Koch, and others, Darlington said the error stemmed from how 27 students with disabilities who did not graduate were included in the calculations. Most were continuing as students in APS programs, while a handful had moved out of the district or dropped out of school.
“Our AHS Class of 2022 graduation rate as reported…does not reflect the ongoing educational activities of our special education students,” Darlington wrote. “The additional…students that did not graduate are still in APS educational programs.”
Darlington, who left the district last August, suggested the data for the students in question may have been mis-coded when it was submitted to DESE. Brown stepped down just weeks before the start of the 2023-24 school year.
“The district reached out to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE’s) to determine best practices in reporting Student Information Management System (SIMs) data for all students in our care, especially in a specialized, multi-district program,” APS said Tuesday. “As a result, we have changed our reporting practice.”
District Continued To Cite Incorrect Graduation Rate
On the first day of school in August 2023, Parvey met with teachers and outlined the steps the district was taking to address the lower graduation rates. She repeated the presentation a few weeks later for the Andover School Committee.
“We have a lot of work to do,” then Chair Tracey Spruce said in September 2023. “I think Andover has always operated at a very high level, but even organizations that operate at a high level can always look at how they can do things better.”
Parvey again used the incorrect graduation rate in a letter to APS families and staff at the start of the 2024-25 school year, noting the graduation rate had gone up 3.9 percent to 96.3 percent in 2023.
“We are pleased to earn the highest possible points for our 4-year cohort graduation rate, with an increase of 3.9 percent from the class of 2022 to 2023,” Parvey wrote. “While recognizing student achievement increases, we continue to identify areas for improvement across the district…At the high school level, we will focus on improving the four-year graduation rate as well as advanced coursework completion rates.”
In a statement Tuesday, APS said it updated its Website to remove references to graduation rates from Parvey’s note. District spokesperson Nicole L. Kieser said APS used DESE data for the graduation rates originally included in the note.
“While the intent of the message is to highlight MCAS results across the district and to signal to families that individual reports are scheduled to be sent home; the district regrets the error and has updated the message on our website to remove the reference to graduation rates,” Kieser said. “It is important to note that all students received the appropriate diploma or certificate for the class of 2022.”
Kieser’s complete statement on behalf of APS is published at the bottom of this article:
APS Acknowledges The Discrepancy
At the Feb. 6 school committee meeting, the correction to the graduation rate was briefly discussed in a broader conversation on enrollment trends. It was the first time APS acknowledged past graduation rate data was erroneous. Shauna Murray, who was not on the school committee when the graduation rates were discussed in 2023, pressed for clarification.
“Were they [special education students] incorporated in our numbers previously?” Murray asked Aixa de Kelley, who prepares data for the district and was also CC’ed on the July 2023 memo. “Is that what was happening?”
“Yes,” Kelley said.
“Okay, so did that impact our graduation data and our graduation rates?”
“Yes,” Kelley said. “That’s why we changed it.”
“Okay. So have things been adjusted in the past to reflect that, or how are we doing that moving forward?” Murray asked.
“I’m not sure if data was adjusted with the Department of Education,” Kelley said. “I know moving forward the graduation rate will be more accurate.”
The Massachusetts Department of Secondary and Elementary Education still lists the incorrect 2022 graduation rate for AHS. Assistant Superintendent Keith Taverna told the school committee “we can look into” amending past data to accurately count special education students when calculating graduation rates.
“We have the ability to amend it. It’s just something we need to educate the community on moving forward, which is why we’ve changed the way we’re reporting it,” he said.
Statement from APS Spokesperson Nicole Kieser
The superintendent identified the graduation rate for the class of 2022 as a concern and asked the Andover High School leadership to review this data. Mr. Darlington’s email notes that students enrolled in our Transition Opportunities Program (students aged 18-22), including North Andover students, were included in the graduation rate data. Upon further review, the district noticed that APS has historically included TOP students in our numbers since the inception of the program over a decade ago.
The district reached out to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE’s) to determine best practices in reporting Student Information Management System (SIMs) data for all students in our care, especially in a specialized, multi-district program. As a result, we have changed our reporting practice.
SIMS is a student-level data collection system that allows DESE to collect and analyze more accurate and comprehensive information, to meet federal and state reporting requirements, and to inform policy and programmatic decisions. Every district is required to report data to DESE through SIMS; data is submitted in July and DESE closes submissions for the previous school year in October.
The September 2024 message regarding MCAS results used the data from DESE’s website. While the intent of the message is to highlight MCAS results across the district and to signal to families that individual reports are scheduled to be sent home; the district regrets the error and has updated the message on our website to remove the reference to graduation rates. It is important to note that all students received the appropriate diploma or certificate for the class of 2022.
Whether or not TOP students are reported in our graduation rate, they are still APS students, and we always support their growth as learners.