Original Research by School Decision on Individualized Graduation & Degree Program
The Individualized Graduation & Degree Program is an alternative high school within the Kent School District, serving grades nine through twelve. This is not a comprehensive high school with a typical scope of state testing data, and a parent should understand that its mission and student body are fundamentally different from a standard neighborhood high school.
Because this is an alternative school, state assessment results for math, English language arts, and science were suppressed and are not available for public reporting. The data that exists for the school is from a single year and is too limited to draw any conclusions about academic performance on standardized tests. This is common for alternative programs, where the population and instructional model often do not align with large-scale standardized testing in the same way they do at a comprehensive high school. A family considering this school will want to ask the school directly about its academic benchmarks and how it measures student progress toward graduation.
The school's enrollment is concentrated almost entirely in the upper grades, with the vast majority of students in twelfth grade and a much smaller number in eleventh grade. Very few students are in ninth and tenth grade, which suggests that many students enter the program later in their high school career. The student body is notably diverse, with Hispanic or Latino students making up the largest share, followed by White, Black or African American, Asian, and students of two or more races, with a smaller number of Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander students and a very small number of American Indian or Alaska Native students. A substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, indicating that a significant portion of the student population comes from lower-income households.
This is a school within the Kent School District, which itself is situated in a large and diverse city. Kent is a major manufacturing and warehousing hub in the Seattle metropolitan area, home to corporate headquarters and facilities for employers like Amazon, Boeing, Blue Origin, and others. The city is divided into three distinct areas: the industrial valley along the Green River, and the more residential West Hill and East Hill neighborhoods. Families live in a large city where many residents commute to Seattle or work locally in distribution and aerospace. Recent years have seen major capital investment in the district, including a voter-approved bond that funded a new middle school and safety upgrades across the district. The district also passed technology and enrichment levies that support classroom technology and extracurricular programs. In response to a budget shortfall driven by declining enrollment and other factors, the school board voted to close two elementary schools. The district also shifted to standards-based grading at the elementary level.
The comparison to other districts in King County is not informative here, because the school's proficiency, graduation, and chronic absenteeism data are all missing. This is not a weakness of the school itself but a reflection of the fact that alternative programs like this one often operate outside the standard accountability metrics. A parent looking at this school will need to rely on direct conversation with the school about its approach, its graduation pathways, and the specific support structures it offers to the students it serves. The name "Individualized Graduation & Degree Program" suggests a focus on flexible paths to a diploma, possibly including dual-credit or other degree-related options, but the available data does not contain any details about those program offerings. The school appears to be a specialized option for students who need a different setting to complete high school, and the enrollment numbers suggest it is a meaningful program within the district.
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