Richmond high school celebrates growing graduation rates

RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) -- Richmond Public Schools (RPS) celebrated a graduation milestone at John Marshall High School (JMHS) on Thursday, Oct. 16 -- ceremonially announcing that every student in a senior class graduated for the first time in school history.

The JMHS Class of 2025 has the claim to fame, and the achievement is a step closer for RPS to have every one of its students to walk the graduation stage and receive their diploma.

Throughout RPS, 80.1% of students in 2025 graduated, which is up about two points from last year. 72% of RPS students graduated in 2022.

RPS Superintendent Jason Kamras attributed investment into non-traditional schedule programs over several school years to making a difference, but added there's still work to be done -- specifically, the success for multilingual learners.

"The area where I think we still need to do the most work -- we've made a lot of progress, I want to be clear -- but it continues to be an area that needs attention, is the success of our multilingual learners," Superintendent Kamras said. "These are kids for whom English is not their first language. Sometimes it's second, third, could be even fourth language."

Kamras also said RPS has supported that mission by hiring 55 "English as a Second Language" teachers, better known as "ESL."