The Florida Department of Education reported that the graduation rate for Sarasota County Schools for 2018-19 was 89.4 percent. The district remained well above the state graduation rate of 86.9 percent. Federal regulations require each state to calculate a four-year adjusted cohort graduation rate, which includes standard diplomas but excludes general equivalency diplomas, known as GEDs, both regular and adult; and special diplomas. The U.S. Department of Education adopted this calculation method to develop uniform, accurate and comparable graduation rates across all states. The Federal Uniform Graduation rate is currently used in Florida’s school accountability system in the high school grades calculation. The graduation rate is calculated by tracking the number of students who start in a school as ninth graders to the number in the same class who graduate four years later.