In the coming weeks, Montgomery seniors will finish high school and receive their diplomas. According to newly released graduation rates for the 2010-2011 school year, only 66% of seniors are graduating in Montgomery Public Schools.

The State Department of Education is using a new formula to show the actual amount of graduates who walk across the stage. The new rates show 49% of students at Jefferson Davis High School graduated last year.

“That's too many, something is getting lost somewhere in the system,” said Josephine Reynolds of Montgomery.

Reynolds' third child is graduating June 3 from Jeff Davis High School. She says all of her children experienced small graduating classes.

“It makes me feel good that my daughter made it, but it makes me feel bad that so many students won’t graduate,” Reynolds said. “Something needs to be done.”

Montgomery County Superintendent Barbara Thompson says the graduation formula will help the school district better identify how to graduate more students.

"This is a first time that this district, that the state has used a cold hard method,” Thompson said. “They used another method for the formula and I think this is probably a more accurate formula of where we are.”

Montgomery County School Board member Melissa Snowden says it’s important for children to understand the importance of education.

"It starts before high school, we have really got to work on our Pre-K programs and really get the foundation in elementary school,” Snowden said. “Middle school is [really] where we've got to reach out to and mentor these students.”

Statewide, 72% of Alabama’s students graduated in 2010-2011. Lanier High School had a graduation rate of 68%, Carver at 71%, and Lee High School was above the average with 85%. Montgomery’s three magnet high schools had above average rates: Booker T. Washington at 98%, Brewbaker Techonology and Loveless Academic Magnet schools at 99%.

The Department of Education says the old formula used up to 2010, included students who received a completion certificate or took more than 4 years to graduate. However, the new formula is said to better measure progress in Montgomery Public Schools.