The Columbia County School District hosted a breakfast presentation on Friday morning, offering a taste of current district data and news.
Coffee with the Superintendent was led by Superintendent Dr. Steven Flynt who dove into a plethora of topics including current district enrollment and the district’s graduation rate and college readiness assessment.
Projected district enrollment
Dr. Flynt opened up the meeting with a look at current projections for student enrollment, which is at 28,644 students.
He stated that external projection reports provided this data, and said that although CCSD has been on a steep trajectory for the past several years, it isn’t expected to continue to grow at the current speed.
Dr. Flynt said less growth wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing.
“It’s nice to grow by a couple hundred students, but if you’re growing more than that, you’ve got to do a lot, you’ve really got to talk about redistricting, you’ve got to talk about future schools, you’ve got to talk about future plans,” Flynt said.
He said that the last few years, numbers have been over the expected projections.
Graduation rate and college readiness
Dr. Flynt shared the district’s 2024 graduation rate, 93.4%, which he described as a “strong gradation rate.”
“We talk to our educators all the time about what happens in kindergarten, first, second grade, has as much to do with this and other numbers like SAT, ACT, all along that progression, as our high schools do,” Flynt said.
He added that this number fluctuates a bit from year to year.
Christie Stewart, a local parent with three children in CCSD schools, asked Dr. Flynt about college readiness, and how the district checks in on graduate students after they leave high school.
To this, Dr. Flynt responded that the district uses the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center to get reports on how many students attend college, as well as how they do when they get there – from whether or not they had to take remedial classes or if they graduate within 5-6 years.
“There’s a lot of privacy around that so it’s hard to get some data,” he noted, also adding that students may also go into the military or workforce.
Dr. Flynt also discussed the College and Career Readiness Performative Index (CCRPI). This scoring tool is used annually by the state of Georgia to see how school districts and the state itself holds up when it comes to preparing students for secondary education.
The 2024 scoring shows that the state CCRPI score is at 78.9, while CCSD falls higher 85.6.
This number has grown since it was last calculated in 2019; then, the state was at 78.8 and CCSD was at 81.2.
This scoring was not calculated between 2020 and 2023 due to the pandemic.
