In May, nearly 8,000 Polk County seniors walked across stages in caps and gowns, shook their principal’s hand and received a folder with a piece of paper.
For 7,468 of them, that paper was a high school diploma, according to data provided by Polk County Public Schools.
The remaining 523 received a certificate of completion, which shows they completed four years of high school but might have failed a statewide test.
That number is down substantially from last year’s 735 certificates of completion. But it’s a distinction that can limit options for young people leaving high school.
- Overall, 6.5% of Polk County students got certificates of completion compared with 2.9% statewide.
- Tenoroc High School had the highest rate of certificates of completion among Polk County’s traditional secondary schools with one in eight seniors (12.6%) falling short of diploma requirements.
What is a certificate of completion? PCPS Chief of Staff Jason Pitts said students receiving certificates of completion are general education students who did not meet expectations by their graduation date.
The most common scenario is not earning a minimum score on standardized reading or math tests. The tests required for graduation are administered in 10th grade but can be retaken multiple times in 11th and 12th grades until students pass. Students with significant cognitive disabilities are exempt from testing requirements.
It is also possible that a student might have failed a required course, earned less than a 2.0 GPA or neglected another state-mandated diploma requirement.
“Many of the students are working and don’t want to finish,” Pitts said. “For whatever reason, they did not meet the graduation requirement and we’re allowing them to walk across the stage and get something.”
District officials noted that the diploma numbers are not final. Some seniors are attending summer sessions. They have until the day before the new school year begins on Aug. 12 to complete the requirements and still be counted in the 2023-24 graduation cohort.
What limitations do certificates create? Most state colleges and universities require a high school diploma for admission. Those with only certificates are ineligible to receive financial aid and might be shut out of entry-level jobs that require a high school diploma.
Before 2022, all branches of the U.S. Armed Forces required a high school diploma or equivalent for enlistment. The U.S. Army has since dropped its diploma requirement, but recruits must earn at least a 50 on the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, known as ASVAB.
Tenoroc High School: Lakeland’s smallest traditional public high school had the highest number of certificates of completion. Tenoroc High saw 201 seniors earn a standard diploma, while 29 received a certificate of completion.
PCPS Superintendent Fred Heid has made changes at the school in the last several years. The district added the Cambridge AICE program to Tenoroc, an accelerated program of academic study offered through Cambridge University. It also added 3DE, a business problem-solving project in partnership with Junior Achievement of Tampa Bay and Lakeland Leads. Former Principal Jason Looney was moved to Southwest Middle School.
Real-world impacts: Just before graduation in 2009, when Connie Wilson was a senior at Mulberry High School, she was passing all her classes, including Advanced Placement English.
But she struggled with what was then called the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. She failed the reading portion by three points and, therefore, was not qualified to receive a regular high school diploma. Instead, she was going to have a certificate of completion handed to her.
“My dad was so upset with the school and we made a decision; I dropped out three days before grades were final and went two weeks later and got my GED (general education diploma),” Wilson said. “I hate the idea of a certificate of completion. It’s not fair to students that work hard to base the rest of their life on a standardized test score. I failed the reading FCAT by three points, but was passing AP English with an A. Make that make sense.”
Wilson, now 33, works at Publix’s corporate office in Lakeland and is doing well.
Tay Crum, 32, also did not pass FCAT reading and received the certificate of completion from Winter Haven High School in 2007.
“I have a job now, I went to the military, I even went to school for phlebotomy, but I struggled with comprehension,” Crum explained.
She is currently a cashier at a local non-profit. She said she was never diagnosed with a learning disorder, but was in a special reading class in high school.
“Honestly I hate the best that I didn’t get my diploma — I went to school for nothing basically,” Crum said. “Work hard all those years and yet you can’t get your high school diploma over one test. I’ve even went to the military, but I don’t want to pursue the further education because I didn’t even get my diploma.”
Florida outcomes: The state’s website shows the following statistics for 2022-2023 school year:
- Standard diplomas 183,416 — 88.0%
- GED-based diplomas: 295 — 0.1%
- Certificates of completion: 5,818 — 2.8%
- Still enrolled: 8,552 — 4.1%
- Adult education: 4,513 — 2.2%
- Withdrawn to contracted private school: 131 — 0.1%
- Dropped out – 5,765 — 2.8%
Pandemic testing pause: In the spring of 2020, schools across the state shuttered due to the COVID-19 pandemic and shifted instruction online. That year, Florida dropped the mandate that graduating seniors pass the statewide assessment test.
The state’s graduation rate jumped from 86.9% to 90% in 2020, while Polk’s went from 81.2% to 86.5%. However, it dropped in the following three years when testing requirements returned.
How Polk County compares: Polk County’s graduation rate trails most of the rest of the state, but it has improved in recent years.
Florida’s high school graduation rate was 88% last year. Polk County’s was almost 10 points lower at 78.3%. Polk’s dropout rate has consistently been about double that of the rest of the state. However, there is one bright spot in the data.
Polk County’s dropout rate has plunged from 7.3% in the 2018-2019 school year to 4.7% in the 2022-2023 school year, the last year for which data is currently available.
Heid attributed the improvement in part to a stricter emphasis on attendance. In 2022, he created a team of “community outreach facilitators” — what were once known as truancy officers.
“If students aren’t in attendance, they can’t learn. That’s it,” Heid said at the time.
Editor’s note: We omitted alternative schools and those with fewer than 50 students in our analysis. Click here to see the full list.
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