Lyon County School District’s graduation rate fell by about two percentage points in 2025, a decline district officials attribute partly to students who transferred into the district’s adult education program.
But while adult ed may hurt the district’s graduation rate on paper, in practice it’s giving students and adults a path forward they might not otherwise have, the district said.
While presenting the 2024-25 graduation rates as calculated by the Nevada Department of Education, LCSD Executive Director of Education Services Jim Gianotti said although the district’s graduation rate overall dropped, each of the schools individually are doing well.
“While many of the high schools saw some great rates, as a district, our percentage dropped and that's due in large part to the number of students who went to adult ed and then maybe didn't complete,” Gianotti said.
According to the state’s report, the district’s graduation rate for 2024-25 was 85.75 percent. The district had a total of 995 students in the four-year cohort ending with the 2024-25 school year. Of those, 656 graduated, 230 transferred out, and 109 were considered non-graduates, who either dropped out, didn’t report where they transferred to, or enrolled in adult ed.
The graduation rate is determined by the number of students who enter high school as a cohort and earn regular high school diplomas within four years. Students who transfer out during the four years, with the requested paperwork from the school where they transfer, are taken out of the calculation. Students who transfer into LCSD schools during the four years are added to the calculation. Any student in the four-year cohort who is considered a dropout/non-graduate, or does not send the required paperwork to show they transferred to another school, is counted as a non-graduate.
Students who earn an adjusted diploma or high school equivalence certificate/GED also do not count as graduates for that four-year cohort. Students who enroll in adult education at 17 years old count as non-graduates for the school. Students who enroll in adult education at 18 years old count as transfers for the school, but if they do not graduate with an adult diploma, they count as non-graduates for LCSD, but not for the school itself.
Considering that, Trustee Darin Farr said he takes those statistics with “a grain of salt.”
“This 85.75% does not in any way capture our rates,” Farr said. “I'm thinking we're probably somewhere around 91.7 to 92, in that range.”
In addition, Gianotti said students in special ed who get an adjusted diploma also do not count as graduates, and thus count against the graduation rate. He said the district also gets dinged if a student who is credit-deficient transfers into the district and then does not graduate.
“It's not super cut and dry,” Gianotti said. “But I still have to point out that despite those shortcomings, when you look at the overall graduation rate for Lyon County School District, and we're sitting at 85.73, that's significant. And that's a lot to celebrate.”
Superintendent Tim Logan said the state’s formula makes it impossible for a district to achieve a 100-percent graduation rate, and he said the adult ed program is important for many of the district’s students.
“They're doing right by people,” Logan said. “And so, you take a hit on your graduation rate, but you try to get a kid a GED or a hand up going into society. A diploma is best, but let's get them the best we could get them as well.”
Gianotti said more than 150 students are currently enrolled in adult ed, and there are adult ed classes in every community in the county except Smith Valley.
“We are, to put it bluntly, we're killing it with adult ed,” Gianotti said. “There's an awful lot of adults earning those diplomas, so we're doing great things for people.”
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