The Virginia Department of Education released its annual analysis of graduation rates around the Commonwealths 313 non-alternative high schools, profiling the classes that entered high school in 2004 and were scheduled to graduate in 2008. Statewide, the on-time graduation rate was 82.1 percent, an almost 1 percent increase from the year before. The 2008 class, all 96,152 students, had an 8.7 percent dropout rate (8,347 students).

Alexandria City Public Schools were one of the 178 school systems with an on-time graduation rate below the state average, and one of 134 to have a dropout rate above the statewide mark.