For the past 20 years Traci Paramore has been a teacher to hundreds of students. After hearing about the new method for calculating graduation rates, she says it's definitely going to make things more complicated.

Traci Paramore, a teacher at Dale County High School, said, “Funding is so short and we don't have the needed supplies for the basic necessities much less something new to contend with some unknown beast out there that's going to be coming down on us.”

As it stands, the old formula credits a student who gradates no matter how long it takes them. The new formula will only count students who graduated in the 4 year allotted time.

Lamar Brooks, Associate Superintendent of Dale County Schools, said, “It's different. Is it going to affect our graduation rate? Yes, it is. I think if anybody that you've looked at and that you've talked to, there's probably going to be from 15 to 20 points different in what our graduation rate would be in the old method as what it would be compared to the new method.”

Lamar Brooks says the change will have an impact on Dale County and its AYP, but he adds teachers are already making changes to build up graduation rates.

“In Dale County we've started looking at scheduling, we've started trying to look at areas in our schedule that we can put in blocks of time that can help with remediation.”

School officials say while they may not see an improvement overnight, they can strive each day to see one over time.

Traci added, “We always want to work to improve and the student success is our number one goal and if that will help us do that better then we'll just have to keep our eye on the prize and keep truckin’.”

A number of other states have already implemented this new method. It is set to go nationwide by 2012. Some school officials say setting the new formula will have a better outcome in the long-run.