For the first time, the Philomath School District has a detailed snapshot of what its graduating classes plan to do after receiving their diplomas — and Superintendent Susan Halliday called it a meaningful step toward understanding whether the district is doing its job.
Halliday presented the data to board members as part of a broader district push to better understand whether students are being equipped for life after high school — and to build systems that can track whether those efforts are working.
“One of the objectives we had was to create a broader career planning program at the middle and high schools to expose students to the full range of options — jobs, college, trade, training, etc., and help them transition to one at graduation,” Halliday said.
She said the district wanted to know what students were planning to do — and whether they followed through. And if they didn’t, was that a reflection of something on the school’s end?
Of the PHS graduates — representing a 97.5% graduation rate — Halliday said she received information from 118 students.
The data showed 29.17% plan to attend a four-year university and 27.50% plan to attend community college. An additional 8.33% are dual enrollment students. Combined, those figures push the college-bound total to more than 68% of the graduating class.
Trades and apprenticeships accounted for 11.67%, while 3.33% said they plan to work and 1.67% are headed into military service.
Within the “other” category at 5.83%, Halliday highlighted several notable details. Three students plan to return for the district’s transition program for students with special education needs. Four students from PHS will pursue two-year mission opportunities before continuing on to school. And in a standout item, three students have already opened or are soon to open their own businesses.
Among the 22 Philomath Academy graduates — an 88% graduation rate — post-graduation plans split almost evenly between community college and work, each at 41%, with trade and apprenticeship accounting for another 10% and a small number of students still undecided.
For the nine students who earned GEDs, 33% plan to attend community college, 44% plan to work and 11.1% plan to continue through the Beyond Philomath Academy/LBCC pathway, which allows students to take classes at Linn-Benton Community College while continuing to work toward a traditional diploma. Another 11.1% were listed as unknown.
Halliday noted that earning a GED does not prevent a student from returning to pursue a standard diploma.
“It’s just kind of interesting to look at some of the pathways and I wanted to make sure we captured them all,” she said. “This really is the first time, I believe, they’ve all been captured.”
Halliday said the district plans to follow up with families in a year to see whether graduates are pursuing what they intended — data that will help the district measure its own effectiveness rather than evaluate individual students.
“What are we doing that is supporting students to get what they need?” she said.
Board member Sandi Hering captured the intent concisely.
“We’d like to have the measure reflect how we’re doing and not how the student is doing,” she said.
Halliday credited Leslie Adams, the college and career specialist at PHS, with much of the work that made the data collection possible.
Board chair Tom Klipfel said the presentation filled a gap that has long existed in the district’s self-evaluation.
“That’s excellent data,” Klipfel said. “I’m sure I’ve never seen this with the district, so this is great and it goes right to our vision of graduating everyone and transitioning into something else.”
Halliday said what stood out most was that every student had some sense of direction.
“The nice part for me to see was that every student had some idea of what they might like to do and there was very little ‘I’m not quite sure yet,'” she said.