More students are graduating from Northside ISD high schools than ever before.

For the Class of 2011, the District’s completion rate is 95.7 percent, and the graduation rate is 91.7 percent. Statistics for the Class of 2012 won’t be available until next year.

“To have a completion rate of 95.7 percent for a district as large and diverse as Northside is absolutely outstanding,” Superintendent Brian Woods said.

The completion rate, which the state uses to determine a school’s accountability rating, is the percentage of students who graduate four years after entering high school plus those who come back for a fifth year of high school. The graduation rate is the percentage of students who graduate four years after entering high school.

The completion and graduation rates are perhaps the single most important indicators of a school district’s success. However, the District’s stellar rates weren’t achieved overnight, Dr. Woods said, and are the result of old-fashioned hard work, increased expectations, and focused dropout prevention efforts.

In early 2007, the District received its first infusion of funding from the High School Allotment, a program established by the state Legislature to increase the completion rate and better prepare students for college. The District used the money to supplement funding for graduation initiatives, and even though the state no longer attaches strings for the money, NISD continues to earmark it for graduation and college initiatives.

In the last five years, the District’s completion rate has risen by 7.5 percentage points, and the graduation rate has risen by almost 12 percentage points.

Here’s how schools have increased their graduation and completion rates since 2007: