H-DHS course failures down

According to numbers reported at Monday’s Hillsboro-Deering school board meeting, the success rate at the high school has spiked upward since last year.

High School Principal Christian Elkington proudly sat by as Student Representative Curtis Hines reported that course failures during the first quarter of the school year are sharply down compared to last year’s first quarter. Although the statistic Hines gave do not include how many students are failing courses, they did give a count of how many course have been failed.

In the Senior class, 8 courses were failed as compared to 17 last year. In the Junior class 17 courses were failed this year compared to 30 last year. In the Sophomore class, 38 courses were failed as compared to 67 last year. And in the Freshman Academy, 33 courses were failed as compared to 105 last year.

Later in the evening, Elkington also gave board members a chart listing how many students are in each class at this time, asking permission for courses with less than twelve students to be kept active. The board unanimously elected to do so.

Only one of the 17 underpopulated courses has only one student, and there is another with three, and another with 4. Other courses are overpopulated, but not to an extent that worries either board members, Elkington or Hines.

“The largest class sizes are in Freshman Academy, and they are having the highest success rate,” Elkington explained.

Elkington also pointed out that the present success rate may allow the high school to schedule a more varied course selection for the spring semester, considering that there will not be as pressing a need for repeat courses because of failed courses.