VISTA -- Depending on how you compute the numbers, anywhere from 10 percent to 30 percent of high school students in Vista fail to graduate from one of the district's schools.

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District officials say the truth probably lies somewhere in-between -- around 25 percent.

Without an accurate way to track high school graduates and dropouts, graduation rates are good for little more than comparison, said Pete McHugh, Vista Unified School District associate superintendent.

"The state method is the one that at least has some consistency from district to district," McHugh said.

However, he added, "The only system that would be accurate would be if you tracked individual students over time."

The state, aware of its problems with calculating graduation rates, is in the process of working on a system that would do just that. The state is assigning each student a 10-digit identification number to help schools track students who transfer to other schools in California.

The new system would give the state, and districts, more accurate data on how many students are dropping out and how many have simply moved onto a school elsewhere.

Because of the inherent inaccuracies in graduation rates, McHugh said the district looks at many pieces of data to gauge its success in keeping students in school, such as how many students have the number of credits needed to graduate and how many are attending alternative high schools.

Regardless of which numbers most accurately reflect the number of students dropping out, Rancho Buena Vista Principal Richard Alderson said there is no acceptable rate of failure.

"As soon as we say 5 percent is an acceptable rate, we've written off those kids," Alderson said. "How do you say to a parent that it's OK that your kid dropped out?"

Dueling figures

The district uses the state's formula for calculating graduation rates -- the percentage of ninth-grade students who graduate four years later. The state divides the number of graduates by the same number plus the number of dropouts over four years.

In 2004, 1,603 students graduated in Vista. Between 2000 and 2004, the district reported 197 students as dropouts. According to the state's formula, 1,603 divided by 1,800 -- 1,603 plus 197 -- comes out to a graduation rate of 89.1 percent.

Recent studies by Harvard University, the Education Trust advocacy group, and the conservative Manhattan Institute for Policy Research -- to name a few -- have accused states such as California of using inaccurate and simplistic formulas to calculate graduation rates. Their research sets graduation rates far below the percentages touted by states and school districts.

In some cases, the research has shown that state formulas can underreport numbers by as much as 30 percent.

"We don't have an accurate paper trail to follow kids," Alderson said. "There's still a myriad of problems."

Those problems are coming to the forefront now with the federal government's strict No Child Left Behind requirement, which forces schools to raise achievement for all students or face sanctions. The law mostly zeros in on test scores, but also requires school districts to report graduation numbers that the state then uses to calculate a percentage rate. Those state calculations have long been rejected by many districts and institutions.

The Manhattan Institute, for example, factors in increases in student populations when calculating graduation rates. That public policy think tank, like others, uses a multistep formula to calculate graduation out rates.

'Far from perfect'

When applying an adaptation of the Manhattan Institute's calculation to Vista Unified School District's figures for 2004, minus out-of-district charter school enrollment that McHugh said would skew data, the district had a graduation rate of 84 percent.

This number is reached by dividing the number of graduates in 2004, 1603, by the estimated number of freshmen in 2000 -- a number calculated by averaging the 8th, 9th, and 10th-grade enrollments over three years, 1919 -- multiplied by the high schools' growth rate during those years. Unlike other districts, Vista high school enrollment between 2000 and 2004 actually declined by 0.8 percent.

Though the Manhattan Institute's figures are usually lower than the state's, in 2004 the institute's number was almost 30 percentage points higher than the 56.3 percent the state reported for the district.

The abnormally low state figure was caused by the School for Integrated Academics and Technologies, a school chartered by the Vista district with 15 campuses across the country but none in Vista. The state figures include all of the state's seven schools, which reported 1,622 dropouts and only 737 graduates last year.

Without the numbers from that school, the state figure would be 89.1 percent, which is more in tune with the other state figures and more than 5 percentage points higher than the 84 percent obtained with the Manhattan Institute's formula.

Using either method, the district graduation rate was higher in 2004 than the state average. The statewide average using the state formula was 85.3 percent compared with Vista's 89.1 percent, while using the Manhattan Institute's formula, the state figure is 69 percent, compared with the district's 84 percent.

McHugh said he thinks the lower Manhattan Institute numbers are probably more accurate.

"My own personal belief is that in Vista we're more toward the 75 percent range," he said.

With both methods, anomalies are not only possible, but common.

In 2001, the district's graduation rate using the Manhattan Institute method was more than 10 percent higher than the state method -- 94.9 percent compared with 84.5 percent. However, the numbers usually tip the other way, with state figures for the district more than 10 percent higher that the numbers using the Manhattan Institute method.

"It's far from perfect," former Superintendent Dave Cowles said of the state system. However, he added, "I think the system is as good as it can be considering the freedom that people have with their movements in life."

The biggest challenge is tracking students who leave for other districts, Cowles said. Some students transfer to nearby districts while others leave the state or country, making it very difficult to determine whether they've actually dropped out of school or not, he said.

Accurate numbers are also becoming more difficult to obtain as the number of students being home schooled or attending alternative schooling increases.

"The challenge is simply the increasing options," Cowles said.

Keeping teens in school

Though increasing options make dropouts more difficult to track, they are extremely important, Principal Alderson said.

Continuation schools, such as Alta Vista High School, help the district keep students in school who might be in danger of failing. Though only 63 percent of Alta Vista's students graduated last year, according to the state, most of the students would have failed to graduate if the option to attend the school wasn't available, said Michael Seneris, a teacher at the school.

The school gets mostly students who are at least 20 credits behind other students in their grade and pushes them toward graduation with the opportunity to earn more credits per year than in Vista or Rancho Buena Vista high schools. The students often fall behind because of problems with family members or drugs, Principal Jamie Baumann said.

Baumann is also the principal of the 150-student Palomar High School, which features independent study for students who can't attend school for various reasons. Students can attend the school as few as a couple of hours a week and do the rest of the work from home, depending on their situation.

"Comprehensive high schools are wonderful for the 60 percent to 65 percent of kids who find their niche," Baumann said. "But many don't find that subculture to connect with."

For these students, the Vista Unified School District has several options. In addition to Alta Vista and Palomar, students who don't find their niche at the two comprehensive high schools can attend Guajome Park Academy, a charter school or Vista Adult Education.

"We have a very dynamic adult-ed program, as opposed to many districts that don't offer them," McHugh said. Last year, more than 1,000 students were enrolled in the district's adult education classes, according to the state Department of Education.

Students in these alternative education programs often require more individual attention than comprehensive high schools can provide, Baumann said.

Even on a smaller campus such as the 350-student Alta Vista, dropouts can be hard to track and graduation rates can be inaccurate, she said.

"It's kind of screwy," Baumann said. "The dropout issue is so complex."

Contact staff writer Stacy Brandt at (760) 631-6622 or sbrandt@nctimes.com.