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DENVER (KDVR) — Despite a pandemic during the 2019-2020 school year, Colorado saw its highest graduation rate in a decade.

Almost 82% of the class of 2020 graduated last spring, according to the Colorado Department of Education. The class of 2020 had 981 more graduates than the class of 2019 — an uptick of 0.8%.

Colorado’s high school graduation rate has improved by 9.5 percentage points since 2010, when the state changed how the rate was reported.

Extended-year rates for students taking five, six and seven years to graduate also have steadily improved.

The state’s dropout rate also improved. The overall dropout rate is 1.8%, an improvement of 0.2 percentage points from the previous year. In total, the state saw 8,561 students in grades seven through 12 drop out last year — 716 fewer students from the previous year.

The Colorado Department of Educated reports more students of color are graduating within four years, and the gaps in graduation rates between white students and students of color are closing. The four-year graduation rate for students of color for 2019-20 was 77.1%, an increase of 1.6 percentage points from the previous year.

When it comes to graduation rates by gender, almost 86% of females graduated, and 78.5% of males graduated.

Although graduation rates spiked last year, the Colorado Department of Education also reported in December that school enrollment rates across the state dropped 3% for the 2020-2021 school year, a drop that hasn’t been seen in more than 30 years.