School Board votes to change graduation requirements

PALMER — The Mat-Su Borough School Board unanimously voted to approve changes to the graduation requirements for MSBSD classes of 2022, 2025 and 2026 and beyond. The move comes after months of deliberation and changes to the graduation requirements themselves.

The first change made by the school board was a reduction by one credit to the requirement to graduate for the class of 2022, removing one general elective credit. The major changes to the requirements for the class of 2025 were to add one full credit, now requiring 25.5 to graduate. Associate Superintendent of Instruction Dr. Justin Ainsworth provided the board with a detailed breakout of all of the available options for further credit recovery and achievement for students that would be provided by the district for study outside of the classroom.

“Before we get into some of the details of the other credit options or some people like to call ‘flex’ options really are aligned with a couple of our beliefs in that education, there is educational value at times beyond the brick and mortar traditional environment and you’ve heard us say this before as well, learning is the constant time and space really are the variables,” said Ainsworth. “Other credit options, flex credit is also articulated in BP 6146 it reads ‘other credit options is designed to give students the opportunity to choose learning experiences that are suited to their personal educational needs.”

Ainsworth detailed the flex options designed to allow students who miss school days due to hunting, fishing, travel, or illness the opportunity to recoup that credit or for students to achieve beyond the required courses. Students who complete 120 community service hours between their 8th grade and 12th grade years may receive a half a credit. Students may receive physical education credits for sports and activities or take supplemental non public school courses such as languages or driver’s education. Students also receive credits for college courses and testing out of classes. Ainsworth detailed the APEX courses designed to provide students with educational opportunities in their core subjects and edynamics, which are exploratory courses such as cosmetology, military careers or digital photography. During the last year, MSBSD staff have also responded to provide distance delivered Career and Technical Education courses.

“This was in response to covid and we were looking to identify some strategies for our seniors who were short elective credit so our CTE team, Trish Zugg one of our leaders in the CTE world and our teachers built these courses and these are half a credit high interest exploratory courses. We’re hoping kids if they’re interested in aviation or Alaska resources, this would kind of give them that initial knowledge and some experience and maybe they are curious and then become CTE concentrated,” said Ainsworth.

During public comment, four members of the public spoke about the graduation requirements with one teacher criticizing the 4 C’s course that had not been employed anywhere else in the United States. Students graduating in 2025 would be required to receive one half credit over their four years in the new course, which was presented later in the meeting and will be voted on at the school board’s next meeting on June 2.

“These courses don’t have to happen outside of the school day, it just provides families the flexibility. We’re hoping to use the 4 C’s as an opportunity to earn and this is an important point of clarification,” said Ainsworth. “They could earn a credit every single year over four years. We have a number of juniors and seniors who will probably earn the 4 C’s credit and they will also earn work based learning credit. One of the benefits of covid is a lot of our students went to work and some of that was for survival and family financial reasons an we have heard through the counselors and principals that our juniors and seniors enjoyed having access to work based learning so those students would receive credit.”

Following the approval of changes in graduation requirements for the graduating classes of 2022 and 2025, the board considered action item F to further amend the graduation requirements for the classes of 2026 and beyond, all by unanimous votes in support.

“The whole process is, you’ve heard me say it, I’m a broken record, has gotten better at every iteration and these graduation requirements would go into effect for next year’s 8th graders,” said Superintendent Dr. Randy Trani. “The primary difference is that for the students so for next year’s 8th graders as opposed to next year’s freshmen, when the 8th graders graduate they would be required to have an additional course specified as either, say another CTE course or another AP course or another IB course. So it’s not an extra credit, the credit stays the same. It’s just we want you to focus your electives in a path. That’s really the big change.”