Trying to add a payment method? You can do this on the 
QuickTake:
The state measures the percentage of ninth graders who have completed one-quarter of their required high school credits by the end of the summer after ninth grade. Mirroring state trends, Lane County school districts are largely doing better on this metric since the pandemic.
In many Lane County school districts, more ninth graders are on track to graduate than before the pandemic.
The upward trend is a spot of hope amid districts’ struggles to get attendance and test scores back to pre-pandemic levels. It also matches statewide progress showing that a higher percentage of high school freshmen are on track in the state’s history of collecting the data point.
Oregon’s on-track-to-graduate rate is the percentage of ninth graders who have completed one-quarter of their required high school credits by the end of the summer after ninth grade. The state has been publishing on-track-to-graduate data since the 2017-18 school year.
Bethel School District is among the eight Lane County districts that have improved their on-track-to-graduate rate to be above pre-pandemic levels.
According to recent Oregon Department of Education data, 88.2% of Bethel ninth graders were on track to graduate after the 2024-25 school year, which is 2.9 percentage points higher than the district’s pre-pandemic peak in 2018-19.
Statewide, last school year’s average of 86.6% of freshmen on track was the first measurement to top the state’s prepandemic peak in 2018-19. The 2024-25 average was 1.3 percentage points higher than 2018-19.
While all Lane County districts with class sizes of more than 20 students have shown progress since pandemic dips in on-track-to-graduate rates, not all have reached their pre-pandemic levels. In Springfield, Oakridge, Marcola and Fern Ridge, for instance, change has been slow in recent years, and sometimes on-track rates have fallen. All four have rates below the state average.
Eugene School District 4J, the largest district in the county, has also been making slow progress since 2021. This year, however, the district raised its on-track percentage by 1.2 percentage points, reaching 86.5%, putting it nearly at the state average. Their pre-pandemic peak was in 2018-19, when 89% of 4J ninth graders were on track to graduate.
