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“Bottom line, I’m not going to be happy until we’re over 90 percent, so it’s still going to be pedal to metal,” Garcia said.

Santa Fe High School made a big gains, improving to 75.3 percent, a leap of 7.6 percentage points from the 67.7 percent in 2016-2017.

Capital High School’s rate increased by 2.2 percentage points to 72.6 percent.

Garcia said the improvements followed dips in grad rates after the district tightened up rules for a “credit recovery” program that allows students to make up lost ground online.

Garcia said students now have to talk to a principal and come to the district’s central office before they can drop out. She also credited hard work from teachers, counselors and principals, as well as various community support programs. “All of this combined is making a big difference in our graduation rate,” she said.

Albuquerque Public Schools’ rate increased to 69.6 percent in 2018, compared with 67.9 percent the previous year.

For the first time, PED also reported graduation data for students who are homeless and found just 52.5 percent of students who are homeless statewide graduated.

In the spring, the state agency is also planning to roll out graduation rates for students who are in foster care.

In December, then-Gov. Susana Martinez touted the state’s 73.9 percent graduation rate for the school year that ended in mid-2018 as an all-time high and pointed to a 10 percentage point jump in the rate since 2011, when she took office.

And on Tuesday, newly appointed PED Secretary of Education Karen Trujillo applauded the teachers, families and students for that success.

However, even at 73.9 percent, New Mexico remains significantly below the national average. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the nation’s graduation rate for the 2016-17 school year was about 85 percent.

Trujillo said national comparisons can be tricky as each state has different requirements.

“When we are comparing apples to oranges it’s kind of difficult to make that direct comparison,” she said.

Regardless of national numbers, PED’s aim is to boost graduation rates in New Mexico by making a diploma more appealing and attainable to all students, Trujillo said.

She explained that students as young as 13 years old will trickle out of their cohort if they don’t see how graduating high school will benefit their lives. She aims to change this thought process and pitch graduation as valuable to all students whether they go to college or into a career.

Trujillo said she would like to get the state average to 80 percent in the next four years.

“Our goal would be a 100, but our goal is to see a steady increase,” she said.

To do this, she said PED will identify strategies that work and encourage districts to borrow them from one another.

“There’s no need to reinvent the wheel. … It’s a matter of being able to identify what those best practices are and to have opportunities for the (PED) to be the conduit from one district to another,” she said.

While the new secretary of education gave a nod to the previous administration for putting a focus on graduation rates, she also said there were some policies that would have hindered graduation rates, pointing to one that was going to require students to meet a certain benchmark on the PARCC assessment to graduate.

Trujillo said PED will research what will benefit students in setting up new standards.

“As we look at what the requirements are and as we replace our assessment system … we look at students coming out of high school (and ask), what are the skills they need to have?” she said, adding that input from colleges and employers will help determine what will be needed to graduate.