Schools Superintendent Rick Smith said everyone should be encouraged by Hamilton County’s increasing graduation rate, but work needs to be done by all to boost it even higher.
The GradNation Summit held Monday focused on this topic, as education stakeholders from across the city met to brainstorm ideas to help more students walk across the graduation stage.
“We know what we know about Chattanooga and the way we get things done in this community is through partnerships,” Smith told attendees at First Presbyterian Church downtown. The event was hosted by the Hamilton County Department of Education and the United Way of Greater Chattanooga.
America’s Promise Alliance, an organization dedicated to increasing national graduation rates, helped plan the event and is hosting 100 more GradNation Summits across the country. The Promise Alliance’s goal is to raise the national graduation rate to 90 percent by 2020. The Hamilton County graduation rate this year was 85.1 percent, above the national average of 81.4 percent.
Educators and community members sat in the church’s wooden pews, listening to national and local speakers and participating in brainstorming sessions.