TCSS Rises One Point on State Report Card, Posts Highest-Ever Grad Rate

The Alabama State Department of Education released the Alabama State Education Report Card on November 13, as well as Report Cards for each school system and individual schools across the state. TCSS gained one point over last year’s report card, moving up to an overall system score of 84/B. Over the past two years, TCSS has posted a five-point overall gain. At the school level, over half of TCSS schools made gains. No schools dropped in their letter grade score. 

For the second year in a row, TCSS posted its highest-ever Graduation Rate. The Graduation Rate on the 2024-2025 Report Card is 92.44 percent, up one point from last year. Graduation Rate is the percentage of students who graduate within four years of entering high school.

The Report Card uses Accountability Indicators to calculate a letter grade for the state, each school system, and each school. These indicators are Academic Achievement, Academic Growth, progress in English Language Proficiency, and Chronic Absenteeism. Our high schools have two additional indicators that figure into their scores. These are College and Career Readiness and Graduation Rate.

The Alabama Education Report Card is one tool TCSS uses to measure progress in our schools. In addition to the measures provided by the Report Card, our schools monitor a variety of data sources, throughout the year. This variety of data helps educators know what is working, where improvement is needed, and how to guide instruction to best serve students.  

An important measure provided by the Education Report Card is the percentage of students chronically absent from school. Chronic absenteeism is defined as missing 18 or more days in a school year, excused or unexcused. Over the past three years, TCSS has improved our Chronic Absenteeism Rate significantly. Schools have placed additional focus on educating families on the importance of school attendance. This year’s Chronic Absenteeism rate is 11.8 percent, down from 15 percent last year. However, our system-wide Chronic Absenteeism percentage remains above our pre-COVID rate of nine percent. Schools with a high percentage of chronically absent students lose points on their Report Card. Students who are not at school miss instruction, which means academic achievement and academic growth measures are also impacted.

All measures that make up the Report Card are from the previous (2024-2025) school year, except for Graduation Rate and College and Career Readiness. These two indicators are one year in arrears, so they are from the 2023-2024 school year.

The Alabama State Department of Education developed the Report Card to comply with state and federal law. In 2012, the Alabama Legislature created the Legislative School Performance Recognition Program Act, which requires a letter grade to be assigned to most Alabama public schools. The Report Card is also in accordance with the federal Every Student Succeeds Act.

Find more information about the Report Card and see your school’s individual State Report Card at statereportcard.alsde.edu.