NHS Students Face New Graduation Requirements

By Eliza Hallabeck

The State Board of Education recently announced its support for increased graduation requirements and need to supply additional student support. Superintendent of Schools Janet Robinson said the plan will have few alterations for students in Newtown.

“We have to go up to 25 credits,” said Dr Robinson.

Last year the credit requirements at NHS increased to 24 credits for graduation, but students who are junior and seniors now only need 22, according to Dr Robinson.

Dr Robinson said the new requirements would not take effect until 2014. The Connecticut Association of Boards of Education (CABE) proposal, which still needs to be passed by the state legislature, would call for a phase-in, where 25 districts would voluntarily implement the requirements by the 2009-10 school year.

“Typically the state has allowed local control in the past,” said Dr Robinson. “That’s why there’s been variation across the state.”

The new proposal by CABE, which is being called The Connecticut Plan, would force schools to require a certain amount of credits per individual subject. It would also create final examinations written by the state for students to pass at the end of their courses, as compared to teachers or the departments in the schools writing the exams.

“Where it really hits us,” said Dr Robinson, “is a lot of our students will have to take four years of math.”

Students wishing to take higher levels of science and math will be strongly effected, according to Dr Robinson. “We’ll need to make sure we have openings for students to take advanced math,” said Dr Robinson.

Requiring extra math and science courses will put more students in those classrooms, and, Dr Robinson, said this could be hard to implement with science rooms already at a high demand.

In addition to mandating more credits for graduation requirements and creating standardized tests for different courses, the state will also require students in their senior year of school to finish a research project.

Newtown High School already offers a senior project course, according to Dr Robinson.

“I think for some school systems this will have a change,” said Dr Robinson. “I don’t think it will have as great a change here because we already require students to take 24 credits before graduation.”

Dr Robinson said she agrees with CABE that secondary school reform needs to be expanded, but she said it is unnecessary for Newtown to designate that students take specific courses before graduating.

“The fact that [The Connecticut Plan] will require students to take certain classes will really affect us,” said Dr Robinson.