MICHELLE WILLARD, Post Staff Writer
Posted: Sunday, September 13, 2009 7:04 am

OHS Assistant Principals Samuel Guydon, Rick Collins, Sandra Eaton and Tim Roediger, along with Principal Bill Spurlock (from left) encourage students to graduate, Spurlock said. and achieve a 91-percent graduation rate last year.

Oakland High School saw “additional, significant increases” in its graduation rate for the 2008-2009 school year, Director of Schools Harry Gill Jr. said.

“We’re very excited. We think it’s a culmination of all the efforts the teachers, graduation coaches and students have put forth to achieve this success …” OHS Principal Bill Spurlock said. “We give them (students) a vision of what their mission is here at Oakland and that’s to graduate.”

The success is posting a 91-percent graduation rate last year, meaning it has beaten the benchmark for No Child Left Behind.

“It is possible that Oakland's grad rate will be even higher as the state continues to go through the data and eliminates students who may have been counted in more than one school district, etc.,” RCS spokesman James Evans said.

“But either way,” Evans continued, “it shows that OHS will come off the high priority list in 2010 and made a tremendous improvement in their graduation benchmark.”

Oakland has been struggling against a low graduation rate for the past several years and has implemented many programs for increasing the rate.

Before he retired, former Oakland Principal Butch Vaughn credited the increase to the development of two key programs – the International Baccalaureate program and the Construction Trades program, which began with a masonry program in 2007.

The school also hired algebra coaches for struggling students and the school system hired graduation coaches for all the large high schools in the county.

Even with all these programs, Spurlock said the teachers made the biggest difference in increasing the graduation rate.

When he took the lead at Oakland last September, Spurlock brought the faculty together to make “sure everyone was on the same page.

“We learned to work smarter and harder,” he said. “Sometimes you can work hard and not be effective. We looked at what we were doing and the impact we were getting out of it.”

One thing the faculty was under-using were their Professional Learning Communities, where teachers get together and plot the best courses for student learning.

Graduation coach Diana Brown said no one program, like her own that identifies students who are at risk for dropping out and keeps them on track for graduation, increased the graduation rate.

“The increase can be credited to a school-wide effort and every staff member deserves a big pat on the back,” she said.

Brown said she couldn’t do her job without the help of “great teachers.

“The teachers at OHS embrace an overall attitude that failing is not an option and they are not afraid to roll up their sleeves and work hard to ensure the success of their students,” she continued.

The success of the students means Oakland will come off the high priority list when the Adequate Yearly Progress report comes out next summer.

Gill explained it takes a minimum of two consecutive years of meeting the graduation rate benchmarks before the school will clear the list. The school was deemed "improving” this year after Oakland posted the best graduation rate in the county and shows the school has completed the first leg of that requirement.

“We're pleased to see Oakland moving in the right direction and have no doubt that the school will clear the high priority list under the leadership of principal Bill Spurlock,” Gill said in a previous interview.

Spurlock said even better things are coming because the school still hasn’t seen the benefits of the International Baccalaureate and the Construction Trades programs, whose first students graduate this year.

Michelle Willard can be contacted at 615-869-0816 or mwillard@murfreesboropost.com.