Principal says school is in state’s top 3% for previous school year
By JESSICA BRICKER
Bluffton High School boasts one of the top graduation rates in the state, graduating 99.1 percent of its students last school year.
BHS Principal Steve Baker made the announcement at Monday’s meeting of the Bluffton-Harrison Metropolitan School District board. He said he went through the rates of the roughly 400 high schools in Indiana and discovered only 12 schools with rates higher than BHS. It’s the highest rate in Wells, Adams, Huntington, Jay, Blackford and Wabash counties — Southern Wells Jr./Sr. High School is 95 percent and Norwell High School is 94 percent — as well as other schools such as Homestead, Carroll, Fort Wayne Community Schools, Carmel and Hamilton Southeastern.
“We had a higher percentage than all of them,” Baker said. “So when I make the statement, ‘Bluffton High School is the best high school in the state of Indiana,’ I have no hesitation to say that and I’ve got the data to back it up.”
The state average graduation rate is 87 percent. The year prior, the school’s rate was 98 percent.
Baker’s presentation showed data going back to 2011 and this past school year was the highest at least since then. The 11-year average is 97.3 percent, he said.
“This (year) is not an outlier. This is not an exception. This is what we’ve been doing at Bluffton High School for a number of years,” Baker said.
The 1 percent of the 116-member class was unable to meet federal requirements for earning a diploma but did receive a certificate of completion, Baker said.
Due to 77 percent of the class earning some form of dual credits, Baker estimated BHS parents saved about $300,000 in college tuition. For a school of its size, Baker said BHS offers “a tremendous” amount — about two dozen — of dual-credit classes. Many students have reported graduating college in three years instead of four because of the college credit they take with them after high school.
None of the students of the class graduated with a general diploma, an all-time low for BHS, Baker said. Meanwhile, 51 percent — an all-time high for BHS — graduated with an academic or technical honors diploma.
“The state average is in the 30s,” he said of the honors diploma. “That is an extremely large percentage for a school our size or our demographics. (We’re) very proud of our students and parents and community.”
The remaining 48 percent of the class graduated with Core 40.
Additionally, 99 percent of the class graduated with everything they were supposed to earn, being considered non-waiver graduates, Baker said. The state average was 79 percent.
“They’re leaving our school with more than just a diploma, so that is a very important percent to us at Bluffton High School,” Baker said.
He credited the students, their families and the faculty — including teachers at the elementary and middle schools — for preparing Bluffton students to graduate.
jessica@news-banner.com
