In 2019, Lake Forest School DistrictET graduated 78.3% of its senior class. That was a crisis number, 10 points below the Delaware state average, the worst rate Lake Forest had posted in the data window, and low enough that a few more bad years could have put the district's sole high school on the state's list of schools requiring comprehensive support and improvement. Delaware flags any school below 67%.

Four years later, the class of 2023 graduated at 90.4%. Lake Forest crossed the 90% threshold for the first time in at least nine years of available data, and its 12.1 percentage point improvement from 2019 to 2023 is the largest turnaround among all 16 traditional districts in the state.

From the bottom of Kent County to the top

The turnaround reordered Kent County. In 2019, Lake Forest sat last among the five Kent County districts, 11 points behind SmyrnaET and 10 points behind MilfordET. By 2023, Lake Forest had vaulted to second in the county, trailing only Smyrna's 93.4% and running ahead of Caesar RodneyET (89.3%), CapitalET (88.1%), and Milford (83.8%).

That chart tells two stories. The first is the gap: in 2015, Lake Forest trailed the state average by 2.1 points. By 2019, the gap had widened to 10 points. The second is the closure: Lake Forest didn't just recover, it overtook the state line. In 2023, Lake Forest graduated at 90.4% against a statewide 88.9%, sitting 1.5 points above average for the first time.

The state average moved 4.6 points in nine years. Lake Forest moved 12.1 in four.

The shape of the recovery

The volatility is the first thing to acknowledge. Lake Forest's graduating class ranges from 197 to 254 students across this data window, small enough that a handful of students can shift the rate by a full percentage point. A cohort of 197 means each student represents roughly half a point. That is not disqualifying, but it means the year-over-year swings, +5.8 points in 2022 and -5.1 in 2019, carry more noise than they would in a district graduating 800.

With that caveat, the pattern is clear. Lake Forest fell from 82.2% in 2015 to 78.3% in 2019, losing ground in two of four years. Then the rate climbed in three consecutive years: +4.6 (2020), +3.4 (2021), +5.8 (2022), reaching a peak of 92.1% before dipping 1.7 points to 90.4% in 2023.

The COVID years are the surprise. While most Delaware districts saw graduation rates drop between 2019 and 2021, Lake Forest gained 8 points over that same stretch. Only WoodbridgeET, another small rural district, showed a comparable counter-trend. Whatever was happening at Lake Forest during the pandemic, it was not disrupting the path to diplomas the way it did at peers like Milford (-10.9 points over the same window) or SeafordET (-9.2 points).

Where the gains concentrated

The subgroup data reveals which students drove the turnaround. White students, who made up 57% of the 2023 graduating cohort, saw the largest improvement: from 73.0% in 2019 to 92.0% in 2023, a 19.1 percentage point gain. That white graduation rate had been the district's weakest subgroup in 2019, lower than the Black rate (87.1%) by 14 points. By 2023 the positions had roughly converged, with white students at 92.0% and Black students at 88.9%.

Economically disadvantaged students gained 16.2 points, rising from 69.2% in 2019 to 85.3% in 2023. That 2019 number was starkly below the state threshold for adequate performance: nearly one in three low-income seniors in Lake Forest's class of 2019 did not receive a diploma within four years.

Male students gained 15.7 points, from 72.0% to 87.6%, narrowing the gender gap with female students from 13.7 points in 2019 to 5.9 in 2023. The female rate also improved, from 85.7% to 93.5%.

A new superintendent, a new cohort

The timing of the turnaround aligns with a leadership change. Dr. Steven Lucas became superintendent on July 1, 2020, arriving from Calvert County Public Schools in Maryland, where he had been principal of Calvert High School. He replaced Brenda Wynder, who had served since 2015, the period during which the graduation rate slid from 82.2% to 78.3%.

"I am thrilled and humbled to have been selected as the next superintendent of Lake Forest Schools. I look forward to working with an exceptional group of staff, students and families." -- Dr. Steven Lucas, Bay to Bay News, 2020

The district subsequently adopted a 2023-2028 strategic plan that emphasizes multi-tiered systems of support and career and technical education pathways, both of which align with the statewide push toward the Delaware Department of Education's 91% graduation rate target for 2028.

It would be overreach to attribute the turnaround to any single factor. A new superintendent's initiatives typically take two to three years to affect the graduating cohort, since the class of 2023 was already in 10th grade when Lucas arrived. Structural changes, earlier intervention programs, or shifts in the student population could also contribute. The shrinking cohort size (from 244 in 2019 to 197 in 2023) means some of the improvement could reflect compositional change, students who might not have graduated leaving the district or dropping out before senior year rather than a higher completion rate among the same population.

The 2023 dip

Lake Forest peaked at 92.1% in 2022, then dipped to 90.4% in 2023. That 1.7 point decline is well within the range of normal fluctuation for a cohort this size, but it is worth noting because it mirrors a pattern visible in other turnaround districts. Woodbridge, the state's second-largest improver (+10.9 points from 2019 to 2023), peaked at 88.9% in 2021 before settling at 87.6% in 2023.

Whether Lake Forest can sustain above 90% will depend on whether the gains reflect durable systemic changes, a revamped credit recovery program, better early warning systems, stronger career pathways, or whether they partly reflect favorable cohort composition in recent years. The class of 2024, when the data arrives, will be the first real test.

What Lake Forest proves, and what it does not

Lake Forest is a rural district in central Delaware. It spends $14,502 per student, below the state median of $18,388. Its student body is 58% white and 38% economically disadvantaged. It has one high school. It is not a district with unusual resources or structural advantages.

That is precisely what makes the turnaround worth watching. If a 197-student cohort in Felton can move 12 points in four years, the question for districts like Seaford (74.0%, down 9 points since 2019) and ChristinaET (73.2%, down 3.3 points) is not whether improvement is possible. It is whether the conditions that produced it at Lake Forest, stable leadership, a coherent improvement plan, and the institutional will to execute it, can be replicated in larger, more complex systems.

The state's 2028 target of 91% requires exactly this kind of movement from the bottom. Delaware's six districts already above 90% cannot get the state there alone. The math requires Christina (73.2%) and Seaford (74.0%) to close gaps of 16 to 17 points, and districts like Indian RiverET (82.0%) and Milford (83.8%) to find another 6 to 8 points. Lake Forest just demonstrated that pace is possible. Whether it is repeatable at scale is the open question.

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