August graduates lift 2016 Schenectady High success rate

As a junior at Schenectady High School, Shatayya Johnson started to miss a lot of class. Her mom was sick, so she stayed at home to help, and with each missed school day Johnson fell further and further behind.

She missed nearly the entire school year beginning that December. And when she returned for classes last fall, her guidance counselors told her she would probably have to wait until 2017 to graduate high school.

“I wish I would’ve stayed in school, because when they told me I wouldn’t have a chance to graduate in 2016 I was devastated — all of my friends were graduating then,” Johnson said.

But as the school year started to unfold and Johnson demonstrated her commitment and success in her classes, graduating in 2017 started to turn back into graduating in 2016. She took a full load of classes during the day and stayed after school to take gym, biology and English as night classes; she was at school from 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. on some days.

With all of her required Regents exams passed and in the bag, but still a few outstanding course credits, she continued to take classes during the summer.

“I tried my hardest to do anything I could to graduate in 2016 – even if It was in August,” said Johnson, who last month joined the rest of the Schenectady graduating class of 2016. “I just wanted to graduate.”

With the graduation of Johnson and nearly two dozen other students in the class of 2016 cohort in August, the district’s graduation rate increased to nearly 69 percent — the highest since the school graduated 71 percent of its students by August 2006. On top of the 24 graduates in the 2016 class, 14 others graduated from earlier senior classes. (In June, when nearly 450 students graduated, the school’s graduation rate sat at 65 percent.)

“Every one of those kids that graduated is a story of people scratching and clawing and figuring out a way to get them the credits they need,” Schenectady City School District Superintendent Laurence T. Spring said. “To figure out how to get them to be successful in a course they hadn’t been [successful in] before or on a test they hadn’t passed before.”

This week, Johnson moved to Boston to live with her sister. She plans on finding a job and enrolling in a nearby community college. She said she is interested in taking criminal justice classes, a subject that came easily to her in high school, but she also wants to work with animals as she progresses in her life and future career.

August Graduation Rates

2016: 69%

2015: 61 percent

2014: 60 percent

2013: 64 percent

2012: 58 percent

2011: 59 percent

2010: 60 percent

2009: 60 percent

2008: 55 percent

2007: 62 percent

2006: 71 percent

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