AKRON – Starting with this year’s eighth-graders, Indiana has made some changes to high school diploma requirements.
During the Tippecanoe Valley School Board meeting Monday night, school counselors Stephanie Anglin and Scott Bibler reviewed those changes.
The Indiana State Board of Education approved the changes to the diploma requirements for all four diploma types Nov. 7. Students currently in high school qualify for graduation under the existing rules and will not be affected by the changes.
Anglin said all incoming freshmen must take Algebra I by the end of their freshman year. Pre-algebra is no longer a high school course and has been replaced by Algebra Enrichment. Algebra Enrichment is for those students who need additional help and must be taken during the same academic year as Algebra I.
Students earning a Core 40 Diploma, Core 40 with Academic Honors or Core 40 with Technical Honors must earn six credits in math in ninth through 12th grade.
The State Board created a new category of courses called Quantitative Reasoning. These are existing courses that help advance student’s ability to apply math in real-world situations and contexts. Bibler said the proposed list of these courses is ongoing.
General diploma students will be required to earn two credits in a math course or a Quantitative Reasoning course during their junior or senior year.
Core 40, Academic Honors and Technical Honors students will be required to be enrolled in a math course or a Quantitative Reasoning course each year they are in high school. Anglin said the difference from the previous requirement is that there wasn’t Quantitative Reasoning before.
If a student chooses to use the SAT option to fulfill the Academic Honors requirements, the score must include the written section of the test. A student must achieve a composite score of 1750 and no less than 530 on each section. Anglin said the previous requirement was just two categories.
If a student chooses to use the ACT option to fulfill the Academic Honors requirements, the student must completee the written portion.
To be eligible for a Technical Honors diploma, a student must earn six credits in a college and career pathway. This replaces the previous requirement of eight to 10 credits in a career-technical program. Bibler said it’s more sequential now.
“They want to see some sequence to your knowledge base,” he said.
The additional requirements now mirror the Academic Honors requirements but include options for fulfilling the Technical Honors diplomas.
Courses counting as dual credit under the Academic Honors or Technical Honors diplomas must be “verifiable” and from the priority course list set forth by the Commission for Higher Education.
“That priority course list is still under revision,” Anglin said.
Verifiable means a school must receive notification from a postsecondary institution that the student has been awarded college credit for that course.
“We document that on their transcript,” Bibler said.
The priority course list includes two subsections, liberal arts and career and technical education.
“Those are the main changes for the incoming freshman,” Anglin said.
Rod Eaton, board member, asked if the requirements will be narrowing down everything for students. It sounds like students’ schedules will be full, he said.
“The tough thing is, some of our kids don’t know what they are interested in, but this is what the state is pushing,” Bibler said.
Once a student gets past their sophomore year, Bibler said, a student probably won’t be able to try other things. Some students may have to take summer school to open up their school year.
Superintendent Brett Boggs asked when students’ schedules for next year will be developed. Bibler said Tippecanoe Valley High School Principal Kirk Doehrman wants them to be done by spring break.
An orientation for the incoming freshmen and their parents is scheduled for March 13 at 7 p.m. at the high school.
The school board did approve an additional course at the middle school level to meet another Indiana State Board of Education curriculum requirement.
The requirement is for middle schools to include a component in college and careers.
“They’re trying to get students to narrow their scope of what they want to look at earlier,” said Earl Richter, Tippecanoe Valley Middle School principal.
To meet the requirement, TVMS will include the course “Exploring College and Careers, Middle Level.” The course will replace the current eighth-grade business curriculum. The nine-week course will be taught in the computer lab where the students can easily access current information. It will be coordinated with the second career course taught in the ninth grade at the high school.
“A lot of this course will be online,” said Richter.
The course will start by students looking at themselves and their strengths and weaknesses, he said. Students then will look at how those match up with careers. Students also will look at personal and employable skills.
“Hopefully, if a student comes out of the course, they can narrow their careers down to two or three choices. This is to comply with what the state wants and hopefully it will be a very valuable tool,” Richter said.
