More than 100 school district employees watched a video at Damonte Ranch High School in south Reno to celebrate the good news.
Washoe County School District Superintendent Pedro Martinez says more than 3,300 students graduated this year - the most ever. That pushes the graduation rate up to 72%, though it's still 5% below the national average. Martinez says it's a struggle to keep graduation rates up every year because a third of his students haven’t passed High School Proficiency Exams.
“Unfortunately the assessment is not tied to our curriculum, and so we have gotten very good at getting our children to pass but it is one of the challenges,” said Martinez.
Martinez believes next year's tests based on the new national "common core" curriculum will solve part of that problem.