RICHMOND, Va. — Richmond Public Schools has reached a major milestone, achieving an 80.1% graduation rate for 2025 — the first time the division has hit the 80% mark in almost a decade.
Superintendent Jason Kamras announced the achievement Thursday on the steps of John Marshall High School, which celebrated its own remarkable accomplishment of a 100% graduation rate for the class of 2025.
"One hundred percent! That means not a single student did they allow to fall through the cracks and that is truly phenomenal," Kamras said.
The milestone at John Marshall represents the first time the high school has achieved a 100% graduation rate in almost 10 years.
Among the most notable data points gathered by the Virginia Department of Education was an on-time graduation rate among Black students at 88% — not only the highest rate since 2008, but also the highest in the school division's history, according to Kamras.
"The orange line is our economically disadvantaged students which hit a graduation rate of 84%, also an all-time high," Kamras said.
Students with disabilities have also seen sharp increases in graduation rates since 2018, though not as dramatically as other groups.
Kamras believes the recent successes are the result of years of investments in multiple areas during his tenure leading the division.
"Alternative programs for kids that the traditional setting wasn't working, dropout prevention programs, dropout recovery programs, more investments in teacher pay so that we can keep great teachers and get more. Investments in their professional development so that they can become more expert," Kamras said.
The graduation rate improvements are complemented by steady increases in SOL scores from 2024 to 2025 in reading, math, science and history, though writing scores saw a 5% dip over the past year.
However, Kamras acknowledges more work is needed to improve metrics for Hispanic and multilingual learners within the school division.
While Black students saw on-time graduation rate increases in 2025 compared to their 2024 cohorts, Hispanic learners saw a drop from 65% in 2024 to 60% in 2025. Multilingual learners dropped from 59% to 48%.
"We're still really far from where we need to be with that group and I think it's about continuing to expand some of those programs, so this year we hired 55 more ESL teachers. That is going to make a huge difference this year. We're also looking to potentially expand some of the other alternative programs that I mentioned for these young people," Kamras said.
The Franklin Military Academy, the division's open high school, Richmond Community High School and the Richmond Virtual Academy also achieved 100% graduation rates for the class of 2025, according to a report released earlier this month.
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