Alabama Graduation Rates: 2023 CrashET · BirminghamET · Black BeltET · CCR GapET · Conecuh · Foster CareET · Gender Gap · Hispanic GapET · HomelessET · English LearnersET · MontgomeryET · Nine RecordsET · Phenix City · Special Ed · Race Gap

Correction (July 20, 2026): An earlier version misstated Conecuh County's graduation rates for the early 2020s and the shape of its recovery. Alabama did not report a rate for the district in 2020, and the figures for the following two years were corrected against the state's published data. The trajectory description has been updated accordingly. The central finding, a rise from 74.6 percent in 2015 to 92.0 percent in 2025, is unchanged.

Conecuh County^↗ET is a small rural district in south-central Alabama. Low income. Predominantly African American. The kind of place that shows up in education data as a problem to be solved.

In 2015, it graduated 74.6 percent of its seniors. In 2025, it graduated 92.0 percent.

That 17.3 percentage point improvement ranks among the largest in the state over the past decade. Conecuh County now exceeds the statewide average of 91.6 percent, a turnaround so complete that the district has crossed from the bottom tier to the top half without anyone much noticing.

The trajectory

The improvement was not sudden. Conecuh County's rate climbed through the late 2010s, from 74.6 percent in 2015 to 84.0 percent by 2019. Alabama did not report a district graduation rate for Conecuh in 2020, one of two recent years the state left the district's rate blank.

When the rate returns in the data, it is higher, not lower: 88.0 percent in 2021 and 92.2 percent in 2022. Where many districts saw COVID-era gains evaporate, Conecuh County's climb held. After a 2024 reading of 89.8 percent, the district posted 92.0 percent in 2025.

That the improvement did not reverse when pandemic-era grading flexibilities expired is what separates Conecuh County from districts whose gains faded. Something structural changed.

Among the biggest improvers statewide

Conecuh County's 17.3-point improvement places it among the top 10 most improved districts in Alabama from 2015 to 2025. In a state where many rural districts, particularly in the Black Belt, are moving in the opposite direction, Conecuh County stands out as proof that geography is not destiny.

The small-district caveat

Conecuh County graduates a small cohort each year. At that scale, individual students have an outsized impact on the percentage. A class of 50 where three additional students graduate shifts the rate by 6 points.

This matters for interpreting any single year's number. But the 11-year trend, from 74.6 to 92.0, spans enough cohorts and enough time to reflect something more durable than statistical noise. The direction is clear even if any single data point carries wide uncertainty.

The question for the state

Rural turnaround stories are rare. Urban districts get attention, resources, and reform mandates when their numbers fall. Rural districts, particularly small majority-Black districts in the Deep South, tend to get written off, their struggles attributed to structural factors that no school improvement plan can fix.

Conecuh County's numbers say otherwise. A 17-point improvement in a decade, sustained through the post-COVID correction, in a district that shares the same demographics and poverty as its struggling neighbors, that is worth understanding.

By the numbers: 92.0%, Conecuh County's 2025 graduation rate, up from 74.6% in 2015. A 17.3 percentage point improvement that has lifted a rural district above the state average.

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