PSD committee modifies proposed graduation requirement changes after community feedback

A committee studying graduation requirements in Poudre School District is recommending requirements for fine and applied arts stay the same and that the health and wellness requirement be reduced by one course rather than eliminated as first proposed.

The revised recommendation calls for students to take 10 credit hours — two quarter-long classes in the block schedule of four classes a day used by most PSD high schools — in wellness (health or physical education) instead of the 15 credits now required and maintains the current requirement of 10 credits in fine and applied arts.

Those changes were made in response to feedback the committee received from parents, staff and community members, Assistant Superintendent Julie Chaplain and Chief Institutional Effectiveness Officer Dwayne Schmitz told the Board of Education at its Tuesday meeting. Chaplain and Schmitz are serving as co-chairs of a committee tasked with revising requirements as part of PSD’s “graduate with options” strategic initiative.

The changes will not negatively impact the ability of any current high school students to graduate on time, Schmitz confirmed Thursday.

Why change graduation requirements?

Students, parents or guardians, and staff said PSD’s current graduation requirements have limited opportunities for students to participate in district programs that support multiple post-graduation pathways, including work-based learning, concurrent and dual-enrollment courses for college credit, and military options.

The goal, Schmitz said, is to “create some space for students to be able to access those opportunities and kind of enrich, if you will, and elevate those opportunities.”

Providing more flexibility in how students earn the 240 credits required to earn a PSD diploma is also expected to improve graduation rates and reduce absenteeism and discipline issues by giving students more control over their course selection, Schmitz said, presenting data from a district survey of nearly 4,000 students reinforcing those expectations.

“Everything moves in the wrong direction when students don’t feel connected to their interests or passions at school,” he said.

What are the other recommended changes?

The recommended changes, which would have to be approved by the Board of Education and would not take effect until 2026, at the earliest, drop the current requirements for 10 credits of world language and culture and five credits apiece of economics and humanities.

They add a required 10 credits of world history to comply with a mandate from the state legislature that all public schools in Colorado provide instruction in genocide and the Holocaust in a course of their choosing that is required for high school graduation. PSD will incorporate that into its world history courses and begin requiring it for students entering ninth grade in the fall of 2025, Schmitz said.

The only other state requirement is a five-credit course in civics, which was mandated by the Colorado General Assembly in 2004.

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What are the other graduation requirements?

Existing requirements of 40 credits in language arts and 30 credits apiece in mathematics and science would not change under the committee’s recommended plan, Chaplain and Schmitz said. The social studies requirements would increase from the current 25 credits to 30 with the addition of the world history requirement. The 10 credits of U.S. history and five credits of civics in current graduation requirements would remain.

PSD also requires a five-credit course in financial literacy that would not be changed.

The total number of credits required for graduation, 240, would not change. But students would gain 20 additional credits of flexibility — from the current 65 credits to 85 — in other courses that can be counted toward that total.

Students must also demonstrate proficiency in mathematics and English by meeting or exceeding minimum scores on state-approved assessments or college or career-readiness measures. State-approved assessments are the ACT, SAT, Advanced Placement exams, International Baccalaureate exams, Accuplacer, ACT WorkKeys and Armed Services Vocational Battery Assessment. To meet the college or career-readiness requirements, students need to earn a grade of C or higher in a course with concurrent college enrollment in each of those subject areas, earn an individualized industry certificate or complete an individualized district capstone project.

What impact will changes have on students who plan to attend college?

The recommended changes keep the 40 credit hours of language arts and 30 hours apiece of science and social studies that the Colorado Department of Higher Education recommends for students planning to attend a four-year college or university in the state. The state department’s recommendations also call for 40 hours of mathematics, 10 more than PSD requires under its current and proposed graduation requirements, and 10 hours of world language.

Many of the state’s other school districts also require fewer than 40 hours of mathematics for graduation, and a committee is looking into changing that recommendation to a level of proficiency, up through Algebra 2, rather than a set number of credits, said Carl Einhaus, Colorado Department of Higher Education’s senior director for student success and P-20 alignment.

Although not required, PSD will recommend students take 10 to 30 hours of world language, which they can begin in middle school, and five credits apiece in humanities, geography, economics, and health or teen choices. The health or teen choices courses, which are not specifically required now, would count toward the 10-credit requirement for wellness, Chaplain said in response to questions from members of the school board.

How do PSD’s graduation rates compare to others in Colorado?

PSD’s overall graduation rates are consistently above the state average but below those of its self-identified peer districts. The district’s four-year graduation rate for 2022-23 was 86.9%, well above the statewide average of 83.1% but below its peer districts of Boulder Valley (91.4%), Cherry Creek (90.3%) and St. Vrain (93.3%) as well as neighboring Thompson (91.1%) and Windsor-Severance’s Weld RE-4 (92.7%).

PSD graduation rates for students of color, students with disabilities, English-language learners and economically disadvantaged students have been consistently lower than statewide averages in each of those areas over the past three to four years, data from the Colorado Department of Education shows.

Those students are likely to benefit the most from the increased flexibility, Chaplain and Schmitz said.

All students will have the ability to earn a diploma

Another key change in keeping with the overall goal of allowing students to graduate with options is a recommendation from the committee that students with disabilities be allowed to earn an actual diploma by taking an alternative assessment that meets state standards and complete the graduation requirements, Chaplain said.

Currently, students on an Individualized Education Plan, or IEP, are not eligible for an actual diploma if they take an alternative assessment instead of one of the state-approved assessments. Those students now receive a certificate of attendance, she said.

The committee is also recommending students on IEPs gain the flexibility to work with their IEP teams to “make decisions about the coursework that they need to take in order to fulfill graduation requirements or, possibly, replace and waive graduation requirements” to better meet their post-secondary and transition goals, Chaplain said.

Another proposed change is to allow multi-language learners to count some of their English-language development courses and other programming support toward English proficiency toward their graduation requirements.

And yet another would allow PSD officials to look individually at the background and demonstrated abilities of students from immigrant families who enroll without transcripts or formal records and determine how many credits to award them for high school instruction received in their home countries or elsewhere. Those students all start at zero credits now, Chaplain said, making it difficult for those who are the age of juniors and seniors to earn the 240 credits required for graduation.

“That puts them on a much better trajectory for on-time graduation than what currently exists today,” she said.

What comes next?

The recommendations that were brought before the Board of Education on Tuesday could be modified or adjusted again based on additional feedback before a scheduled second reading at the school board’s April 9 meeting, Schmitz said. They could be approved by vote that night.

Members of the school board seemed to be in favor of the recommended changes, based on their questions and feedback following the first reading Tuesday night.

Reporter Kelly Lyell covers education, breaking news, some sports and other topics of interest for the Coloradoan. Contact him at kellylyell@coloradoan.com, x.com/KellyLyell and  facebook.com/KellyLyell.news. 

This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: PSD committee modifies proposed changes to graduation requirements