WICHITA — Wichita school district leaders say some student records at Southeast High School were changed — possibly to meet graduation requirements — and the district is investigating allegations of grade fixing at the school.
Southeast High’s principal, Claudia Cooper, was replaced unexpectedly last week. In an email to employees, Lauren Hatfield, assistant superintendent of secondary schools, said Connie Redic would serve as Southeast’s principal for the coming school year.
Redic previously served as principal at Curtis Middle School in Wichita.
District officials say Cooper is still employed by the district, but would not say where she is assigned. They did not say whether she or other employees are involved in the investigation.
“Recently, some anomalies at Southeast High School came to light. District administration reviewed and corrected data to ensure accurate information is reported to the state,” said district spokeswoman Susan Arensman in an email.
“Less than 10 records were changed and, at this point, there is no indication of data inaccuracies in past years.”
Like many districts in Kansas, Wichita has focused on raising its graduation rate as a measure of student achievement. A strategic plan approved by the Wichita school board in 2023 pledged to increase the graduation rate from 79.2% to 85% in 2029.
In a report to the board in November, Hatfield announced the graduation rate for Wichita’s class of 2024 was 84.3% — 5.1% higher than the previous year.
“It is the largest jump we have ever taken in one year, and it is by far the highest graduation rate Wichita Public Schools has ever had. Just soak that in for a second,” Hatfield said, and several board members applauded.
The graduation rate increased at every Wichita high school, but Southeast High showed especially sudden gains.
Less than a decade ago, Southeast’s graduation rate was the lowest in the district, at 65.4%. By 2023, it had increased to 76.7%. In 2024, Southeast’s graduation rate soared to 86.3% — a 12.5% increase in one year, and higher than the district average.
Two other Wichita attendance centers posted higher gains in 2024 — Sowers Alternative High School at nearly 17%, and Chester Lewis Academic Learning Center, with 47%. Because those schools have fewer than 100 students, graduation rates can vary widely year to year.
North High and South High reported increases of about 9% from 2023 to 2024.
A teacher at Southeast High School said the extraordinary increase at that school raised concerns among some faculty, who worried the school could be manipulating data to artificially inflate its graduation rate.
“One of the assistant principals … said they had a 100% graduation rate” among students they supervised, “which I’ve never seen in over a decade,” said the teacher, who asked not to be identified because of fear of reprisals.
This spring, concerns intensified when some teachers said they noticed students graduating who had failed required classes.
