Back On Track with Credit Recovery: How Pasco County Schools Creates Impact

For students at Pasco County Schools in Florida, credit recovery offers a second chance without lowering standards. 

Each spring, Pasco County Schools (PCS) in Florida hosts a “Turnaround Awards” banquet to celebrate graduating seniors who have found academic success after a rocky start to their high school careers. 

One student’s freshman year was marred by a house fire and a subsequent period of homelessness, recalls Larry Porter, supervisor of resiliency and behavior in the district’s department of Curriculum and Instruction. As a result, the student failed some of her core classes. But with the help of PCS’ comprehensive, rigorous credit recovery program, she was able to get back on track―and she started college this fall. 

“[The student] had a number of challenges, but she was resilient,” describes Porter, who is on the team that oversees the district’s credit recovery program. “She specifically mentioned a teacher who worked in the credit recovery lab with her. She talked about how important it was to be able to access credit recovery to give her a path forward after her freshman year.” 

PCS kicked off its credit recovery program more than a decade ago. The program started with 9th graders, but the district hadn’t yet established a record of helping students get back on track. Many of those first students didn’t see the purpose of credit recovery, so district leaders aimed their efforts at seniors who needed the credits to graduate. The value of the program soon became obvious to students in all grades, and Pasco County Schools now offers course recovery as early as middle school to help students meet promotion requirements. 

Students, Porter says, see the credit recovery program not as an easier way to graduate but rather as a lifeline that ensures that a few missteps won’t derail their entire academic careers. 

"We’re not trying to create a fast lane to graduation,” Porter explains. “We’re trying to create an alternative lane for the students who need it. Every year, students talk about how credit recovery gave them the opportunity to make up for mistakes they made when they were 14 years old.” 

Credit Recovery in Action

Around 2,400 students—out of a total of approximately 100,000 in the district—participate in Pasco County Schools’ credit recovery program each year. In summer 2025 alone, high school students recovered more than 3,700 semester courses. While most of these are students who have previously failed a course, the program also serves students with special circumstances, such as those who are hospitalized or homebound. Rather than waiting until students are at serious risk of not graduating, district officials try to target students as early as possible. In fact, if students fail even one unit in a core course, they can immediately access the district’s online learning platforms to make up the material in a process the district calls “grade replacement.” 

“Years ago, we would wait until students had tons of courses to make up, and it would become overwhelming,” Porter remembers. “Now, we get in front of kids as soon as they get off track. That’s something we’ve improved over time.” 

Typically, students are grouped together by subject area for their credit recovery periods, and teachers in credit recovery labs provide just-in-time support as students make their way through online instructional materials. The program is based on content mastery rather than seat time, and students can test out of certain parts of courses. The district locks down assessments to prevent students from completing them at home, ensuring that students demonstrate their content mastery in a controlled setting.

“We work really hard to make sure those labs are tight, in terms of implementation,” Porter says. “A certified teacher signs off on all of the grades, and the grades are reviewed by the school counselor and the assistant principal. Whenever something doesn’t look quite right, we work to support the site and make sure they are following procedures.”

Although students in credit recovery have previously struggled with the material, many thrive in the self-paced, supportive environment. 

“The teachers who run the labs have become masters at engaging these students,” Porter notes. “There are some really strong teachers who support these labs, and they excel at both providing support and monitoring students to keep them on track.” 

An Impact Beyond Measure

The graduation rate at Pasco County Schools hovers over 95 percent. That is well above the state’s 2023-24 average of 89.7 percent, and it is also a significant increase from the district’s 81.4 percent graduation rate in the 2016–17 school year. Porter credits much of that success to the district’s credit recovery program.

“It has had a large impact,” Porter reports. “We have seen a significant number of students who really did not have a traditional path forward to graduation. Without credit recovery, they wouldn’t have had options to get back on track. Again, we have 2,400 students participating in credit recovery, and each one of them is likely to have made up a course or a credit. That gives you a sense of the meaningful impact that has had for so many of our kids.”

Beyond the numbers, Porter sees the impact of credit recovery in students like those recognized during the Turnaround Awards. Nationally, credit recovery programs have sometimes been dismissed as pipelines meant to push students through the system and inflate graduation rates rather than encourage real learning. Porter, however, sees Pasco County Schools’ credit recovery program as a rigorous, meaningful second chance—and he has seen the impact of that second chance firsthand. 

“We find that the kids who are successful in our program also do well with the options they have after graduation,” Porter remarks. “It’s not one type of student. Some of them go to college, and some enroll in trade schools. They graduate with options, and they take advantage of those options.” 

“These are students who made mistakes when they were very young, and this is a way for them to find success,” Porter adds. “Once they’re engaged in the credit recovery program, they tend to do really well. You never know what a student can accomplish when given a chance.” 

About the author

Calvin Hennick has written for Scholastic Instructor, EdTech Magazine, The Boston Globe, and dozens of other publications. His debut memoir, Once More to the Rodeo, was named one of the Best Books of the Year by Amazon. He began his career as a middle-school English teacher with Teach For America.