When Superintendent Denise Juneau took office in 2009, there were 2,423 students who dropped out of school, and Montana had a dropout rate of 5.1 percent. Inspired by the early successes of the Graduation Matters Missoula initiative, Superintendent Juneau launched Graduation Matters Montana in 2010. Graduation Matters Montana is a statewide effort to ensure Montana students graduate from high school prepared for college and the workforce. Superintendent Juneau has set a goal to cut Montana's dropout rate in half to 2.5% by 2014. The positive results of these state and local partnerships have been demonstrated in the data over the past two years. Since the launch of Graduation Matters Montana, the statewide dropout rate has been on the decline, and the graduation rate has gone up. Montana's high school dropout rate has decreased from 5.1 percent in 2009 to 4.1 percent in 2012, and the graduation rate has increased from 80.7 percent in 2009 to 83.9 percent in 2012. This means that 582 fewer students dropped out in 2012 than in 2009. The credit for this improvement belongs to the school leaders, teachers, community members, parents and students who have put in the work at the local level to make a difference in the lives of hundreds of students who may not have made it to graduation without their efforts.