It’s hard to believe we’ve wrapped up another school year in St. John the Baptist Parish Public Schools.

Summer break began today for our students, and tomorrow our teachers start theirs. The end of the school year is always a busy time, with graduations, testing and end-of-school programs filling the days — and nights.

We are sending more than 300 graduates out into the world this year.

They left our halls with an impressive total of more than $5.5 million worth of scholarship offers.

Some racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of offers from multiple colleges for their academic achievements.

Preliminary data recently received by the St. John the Baptist Parish Public School District show these graduates are leaving the district more prepared than ever.

Graduation rates in our district continue to rise, and our students’ ACT scores are up significantly.

The “strength” of our diploma is also up, according to these preliminary reports, meaning our students are getting a jump start on their future by taking advanced placement courses and earning college credit in high school through dual-enrollment courses.

All of these factors come into play when the state calculates District Performance Scores, and they are a strong indication that our B letter grade earned for the 2014-15 school year wasn’t just a fluke but a sign of a district on the rise.

Our administrators and teachers are accomplishing all of this in a district where nearly 82 percent of students are listed as “economically disadvantaged.” Usually, this is understood to mean that the schools serving those students will demonstrate lower academic achievement than schools with fewer economically disadvantaged students.

Not so in St. John the Baptist Parish.

No school district in the state of Louisiana with at least 80 percent of the student body categorized as economically disadvantaged performed better in last year’s accountability rankings — not one. Only one, Jefferson Parish, shared our B rating. This speaks volumes about the refusal of our students, staff, parents and the entire community to let circumstances dictate the future of these children.

It’s been a whirlwind of a year, not only for this school district but the entire parish.

We celebrated successes, such as the reopening of East St. John High School and the awesome news of our new B letter grade.

We also dealt with disaster, with the fire at East St. John Elementary School and the tornadoes that devastated much the parish.

Through it all, our staff and students were able to keep it together and continue to keep their focus on teaching and learning. They all deserve, and we hope they have a great summer!

Jennifer Boquet is the communications specialist for St. John the Baptist Parish Public Schools. Email her at jboquet@stjohn.k12.la.us.