Despite rising graduation rates, Cloquet alternative school flagged

The Cloquet Area Alternative Education Programs, a small alternative school for grades 6-12 which draws from 12 school districts, made a list of 371 schools that will receive extra support by the state department of education last week. The program’s four-year graduation rate was below 67 percent for all students, triggering the extra support.

Located in Cloquet’s Garfield School, the school ironically reported its highest percentage of graduates last year at 59.4 percent.

According to the state’s Minnesota Report Card for CAAEP, the school had a graduation rate of 33.3 percent in both 2017 and 2018, jumping to 54.5 percent in 2019, and back down to 40 percent in 2020.

Cloquet superintendent Michael Cary said most alternative learning centers in the state were flagged for the same reason.

“The nature of an ALC is that students must be off track for four-year graduation or be experiencing a short list of other qualifiers that puts them at risk of not graduating ‘on time’ in order to even be eligible to enroll,” Cary said. “It’s my opinion that a four-year graduation criteria doesn’t make a lot of sense when applied to ALCs. It would be more practical to look at their five- and six-year graduation rates.”

Cloquet High School was included in the list as a “linked” school, because it sends the largest number of students to CAAEP; the alternative learning center draws 30 percent or more of its enrollment from CHS.

According to state statistics, the graduation rate at Cloquet High School was just over 94 percent in 2018 and 2019, and dropped to 92.9 percent in 2020 and 91.9 percent in 2021.