MACON, Ga. — Patricia Vinson has been an educator for 35 years, and she's devoted her career to the same high school she attended.
"Southwest is my Alma Mater. I graduated from here in 1977. I came back to teach in 1984, so this is my home," Vinson said.
She stayed true to Southwest through all of its highs and lows, including 2012 when the graduation rate plummeted.
Tanzy Kilcrease took on the job as principal in 2013.
"When I got there, I realized we had a 38% graduation rate, and, of course, that did not sit well with me, so therefore, the conversations with students, with parents, with faculty and staff was, 'Is this what we want to represent us?'" she said.
She says getting the students to buy into their futures was a good place to start.
"They didn't even know what it took to graduate. They didn't know the requirements. They didn't know how many Carnegie Units they needed, so we sat down with each individual student to ensure that they understood that graduation plan," Kilcrease said.
Under Kilcrease's leadership, Southwest's graduation rate went up to 71% in 2015. Principal Dexter Martin took over and continued the progress.
"We were looking at attendance, we were looking at discipline looking at culture, we wanted to change the culture," Martin said.
He says it hasn't been easy, but doubling their score has made it all worth it.
"As I interviewed people, I told them, 'This will be the hardest job you'll ever have, but it'll be the most rewarding job if we can make it happen,' and here we are four years later, five years later and 80 percent, 80.1 percent," Martin said.
Southwest has about 850 students.
Martin says the students of this year's senior class have already made it a goal to beat last year's 81% grad rate.
Georgia's Department of Education reported the state's grad rate hit 82% putting Southwest just a point under the state average.
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