The Greene County School Board is looking to make a change to graduation requirements for high school students.
Currently, the district offers several diplomas, including a basic diploma of 42 credits, which is reviewed by a committee for approval, a regular diploma of 58 credits and an honors diploma with 66 credits. Greene County Schools Superintendent Tim Christensen says the state requires just one diploma and so a committee has been working since December and the Board formally approved the first reading of those revisions.
The changes include having one diploma at 50 credits and dropping the required amount of elective credits from 28 to 20. Some of the other changes are requiring at least five elective credits cannot be from the vocal or instrumental music departments, having students identify how they met the attributes of a Portrait of a Graduate, starting with next year’s freshman class, and installing Component Based Recovery program, which allows students to retake portions of a course to pass it, rather than retaking the entire course.
Christensen says while these changes are needed to adhere to the state requirements, he sees this as an opportunity for high school students to take advantage of more college courses.
“It’s on us as educators, as parents, we’ve got to encourage kids to take courses. We can’t say, ‘You only have to have 50 credits, go out and greet the world.’ We’ve got a great opportunity here with the career academy, with other college courses. I don’t know if parents recognize, kids can graduate with 30 to 36 college credits, that if you look at what the cost of college credits are, that’s something the school is paying for, instead of dad and mom or guardians paying for that.”
If the Board approves the second reading during its March meeting, Christensen says the new graduation requirements would go into effect sometime next school year and those students that meet the minimum threshold to graduate could do so at the end of the first trimester. Click the link below to see all of the proposed changes.