MSBSD introduces Educational Choice Diploma for Mat-Su Central

Following months of discussion, the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District (MSBSD) introduced the ‘Educational Choice Diploma’ at Mat-Su Central School (MSCS) which, if approved, would begin with the graduating classes 2026.

Under the Educational Choice Diploma, proposed by MSBSD Superintendent Dr. Randy Trani at a school board meeting in January, students enrolled as correspondence students at Mat-Su Central School may earn an Educational Choice Diploma by completing at least 25.5 credits in the following required and elective subjects: Language Arts – 4.0 credits, Social Studies – 3.5 credits, including .5 units in Alaska History, Mathematics – 4.0 credits, Science – 3.0 credits, PE/Health – 1.5 credits, and General Electives* – 9.5 credits, which may include Career & Technical Education (CTE), JROTC, Fine Arts, World Language, or additional core courses.

It would remove the AP Seminar, 4Cs, additional AP/IB/CTE Concentrator requirement, and the specificity in core course requirements in recognition that some courses do not align with homeschool models of instruction. It maintains both the total credit requirement of 25.5 and the standard core credit totals required for graduation.

“It maintains the core requirements like everybody else in all of the other brick-and-mortar schools and other charter schools, but it removes that specificity and has nine and a half credits of electives, which could really be anything,” Dr. Trani expanded during the meeting. “A student at Mat-Su Central School would have a choice of this diploma or the other diploma.”

The ‘Educational Choice Diploma’ is a restructure of the current high school graduation requirements within the MSBSD, which currently requires graduates to complete 26.5 credits, well above the state requirement of 21 credits, making it the highest credit requirement in the state.

The proposed policy is specific to MSCS, but Dr. Trani said he could imagine other correspondence schools, such as Twindly Bridge or Knik Charter adopting the same option, which he said could easily added.

School board member Ted Swanson said that his children attend Twindly Bridge Charter School (TBCS) and believes it would behoove the district to add Twindly Bridge to the Educational Choice Diploma so the students and school could get the funding as well. But as Dr. Trani explained, currently TBCS is only a correspondence school, even though some students attend in-person. Dr. Trani said that the Twindly Bridge charter could approach the school board, which in turn could approach the state to determine if the school could become hybrid like Mat-Su Central School.

MSBSD school board member Tom Bergey said he would like to see the Educational Choice Diploma made available to other schools, specifically those outside of the core MSBSD.

“If we could expand it out to where it’s offered…this might also work for schools like Glacier View, Su- Valley, those schools not in the core area,” he said. “I see this as a valuable tool and I think it would have value expanding it out to the periphery where we have low staffing numbers.”

The school board is expected to continue discussions of the Educational Choice Diploma at the next meeting on May 7, the last scheduled school board meeting of the 2024-2025 school year.