New graduation standards proposed for high school

Requirements would be phased in over time
Healdsburg High School students will have to work harder to earn their diplomas, under new requirements being considered by the school district, which would begin to affect the class of 2017. Superintendent Chris Vanden Heuvel presented the first reading of the proposed Healdsburg Unified School District graduation requirements at a school board meeting held on Wednesday, Nov. 18.
“It represents a fairly dramatic increase in graduation requirements,” Vanden Heuvel said about the proposal.
At a school board meeting held on Nov. 19, 2014, the district proposed a process to assess and recommend future graduation requirements for the district. The school board established an ad hoc subcommittee with two trustees, a student trustee and a team of administrators. The subcommittee met with stakeholder groups and gathered data and opinions.
“We sat down and we looked at what we wanted to do in terms of graduation standards at Healdsburg High School. The reality is that our graduation standards hadn’t changed for a long time and we looked at national averages and saw that in California … California is really behind the rest of the nation,” Vanden Heuvel said. “We also started talking about what we want our students to know and look like when they graduate from Healdsburg High.”
The subcommittee then developed a proposal for graduation requirements that was discussed at the school board meeting.
The requirements for English (four years), history and social studies (three years) and Physical Education (two years) will stay the same.
A third year of math and science will be added, and one year each of visual/performing arts, a language other than English, Career Technical Education and freshman and junior seminars would be required. Instead of having a standard amount of community service hours, community service would be embedded in seminar classes. Senior projects will be developed as well.
Vanden Heuvel said that Eric OConnors’ Civic Action Project with his senior civics classes is a prototype that might morph into the future senior projects.
These requirements would all be phased in over time and completely rolled out for the class of 2020.
Currently students need 220 units to graduate. The class of 2017 would be required to have 230 units and 240 units would be required of the class of 2018 and onwards.
Healdsburg Junior High Science Teacher Barbara Pinney spoke in the public comment of the discussion at the school board meeting. “I’m like 99.9 percent hugely in favor of this, my only caveat is more P.E.,” Pinney said. “I don’t think two years of P.E. is enough.”
Vanden Heuvel said the next step is for the subcommittee to revise the board policy that goes through the graduation requirements and for it to be read through in December.
Director of Curriculum and Instruction Erin Fender said that she and Vanden Heuvel are visiting with governing councils, other school groups, high school leadership students and staff, and the meetings will be finalized and input received before the proposal is brought back to the school board for approval. Vanden Heuvel said that outreach has shown that there are questions about the proposed standards but there hasn’t been any pushback thus far.