On Oct. 29, 2008, the US Department of Education finalized rulemaking that established a uniform graduation rate calculation required for all states. In December 2010, the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) issued guidance which provided a framework for understanding the rules established by the US Department of Education pertaining to the calculation of the adjusted cohort graduation rate (ACGR) and its implementation. This guidance document builds upon previous versions and serves as the sole local guidance for the graduation rate calculation.

This document serves the following purposes

1. Defining the ACGR;
2. Clarifying the steps taken by OSSE in collaboration with local education agencies (LEAs) to identify the ninth-grade cohort;
3. Outlining the process for identifying student outcomes; and
4. Specifying the documentation that LEAs are required to maintain and submit to OSSE to verify student outcomes.

The most recent ACGR Policy Guide supersedes all prior ACGR guidance. It should be used in conjunction with other metric calculation confirmation and entry and exit code guidance.

• The 2023 update includes additional scenarios to support LEA decision making and addresses:
• Issues raised to LEA Liaisons in 2022, such as transfer and exit guidance for exchange students;
• Alignment with updates to related policies such as entry and exit guidance, data validation, and metric calculation confirmation, such as the use of the federal at-risk definition and instances with independent schools;
• Changes in OSSE systems and processes, such as state cohort entity structure (Maya Angelou settings) and Automated Data Transfer (ADT) or Application Programming Interface (API); and
• Nomenclature changes to align with OSSE’s current conventions and programming.

Related Content: High School Graduation Rates | Resources for LEA Data Managers