DUBLIN, Ga. — Dublin City Schools' and Georgia's statewide grad rate average reached record high levels this year.
That's even after the pandemic hit back in Spring.
Dublin High and Moore Street School graduated more than 90% of their 2020 class.
Former Dublin High senior Jason Lin says that's quite an accomplishment considering the pandemic hit during their Spring semester.
"We started not going to practice anymore. We started not coming to school anymore as well. Everyone was like, 'Oh what about prom? What about prom? and then what about school? What about graduation'," Lin said.
The switch to remote learning put a lot of stress on students and teachers. John Strickland with Dublin City Schools agreed with the state's decision to reduce graduation requirements to keep students on track.
"They put together a pretty good plan and wound up looking at things that they needed to do. They knocked that end of course testing away, and they took it out. That usually counts as 20% of a seniors grade at the end of the year," Strickland said.
"The year was already stressful already and we just wanted to get a break from it, so rather than having a bunch of big tests and on top of it, having the big tests at home, it just seemed kind of off. So it was better to just not have them in general," Lin said.
Georgia's statewide grad rate average reached 83.8% this year, a steady 14 point increase from their 69.7% in 2012.
Dublin City School's 93.8% average is the highest grad rate in the system's history.
"We're one of the highest in our area which is always good, and highest in our county so we look at those kind of things and it's good to know for the community that you've got schools that are graduating the students that come to them," Strickland said.
"We'll be in the history books, graduating in a pandemic," Lin said.
Dublin High School's 94.31% score combined with Moore Street School's 91.67% grad rate make up the system's 93.88% average.