(RALEIGH) -- North Carolina’s high school dropout rate is now at an all-time low. During the 2009-2010 school year, the dropout rate declined from 4.27 to 3.75 percent. That translates to roughly 16,800 students who left school early, down more than 2,300 from the previous year.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction June Atkinson said the results are a testament to the hard work by educators. "To personalize education for every child. To make sure that students have options and to give them the support that they need to stay in school," said Atkinson.

Atkinson added that the news is positive but cautioned that North Carolina has not solved the dropout problem yet. "There's a lot of the that we need to do to make sure that we increase our graduation rate above 85 percent, above 95 percent."
 
Despite the positive academic news, education officials said school violence is on the rise. The number of acts of crime and violence jumped 4 percent to nearly 8 acts per 100 students. However, the number of out-of-school suspensions and expulsions decreased during the same time period.