Evidence that HCYR’s Charter School system is succeeding beyond our wildest dreams continues to pour in.

In October, Hill Country Youth Ranch staff attended the Texas Child Care Administrator’s Conference in Austin and came away shocked by the news that high school graduation rates and college attendance rates for foster children are abominably low, and getting worse.

"We are equally surprised," said Executive Director Gary Priour, "that our own children’s success rates, especially since the inception of the Charter School system, have been so amazingly high."

The national rates reported were that only 20% of students in foster care graduate from high school, and only 2% ever attend even one semester of college. And yet, of the ten 2007-08 seniors at the Ed Brune Charter School at Big Springs Ranch, along with two 2007-08 seniors living at the Hill Country Youth Ranch in Ingram and attending Tom Moore High, we had a 100% graduation rate.

Four of the these graduates are currently enrolled and attending college, and two more are on the threshold of attending in January. Of the remainder of the class of 2008, the rest are either gainfully employed or are enlisted in military service.