Schools ponder graduation requirements
By Phyllis Moore
Published in News on March 9, 2016 1:46 PM
Ten years after the Wayne County Board of Education lowered the number of credit hours required for high school graduation, the school board Monday night heard arguments in favor of reinstating the required credits toward "increasing the value of what a Wayne County diploma means."
The board also approved contracts to purchase 14 new school buses and band uniforms for Eastern Wayne High School.
The graduation requirement changes made by the board back in August 2006 were touted as part of a new trend to help students graduate as early as possible, then-superintendent of curriculum and instruction, Dr. Sandra McCullen, said at the time. The shift did not eliminate required courses, only electives, she said, reducing those credits from 14 to 10.
In the decade since, however, there is now a new trend, Tamara Berman-Ishee, assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction, told the board Monday.
The state actually only requires 22 credits, she said, plus any local requirements determined by individual school districts.
Wayne County Public Schools had previously required 28 credit hours, with the reduction made in the interest of increasing graduation rates.
On the block schedule, students sign up for four credits each semester, with the possibility of earning 32 credits or more by the time they graduate, she said.
"Currently, the way we have it right now, with 24 credits, it opens up several possibilities," she told the board. "One, students can actually fail eight classes but still graduate on time with their class, making up those classes.
"Students can graduate a year early. What commonly happens with students earning 24 credits to graduate is those students tend to become part-time students junior and senior year because they don't need more than 24 credits to graduate so there's room in their schedule to do that."
While some students ambitiously earn more than 28, some more than 32, it is important to see where Wayne County stacks up with other districts.
"We surveyed counties around the state," she said. "We've heard back from about 20 (districts) already and everybody that we've heard back from has 28 credits as their graduation requirement. So all of the surrounding counties, nobody knows of a county that has a graduation requirement this low."
Returning to the 28-credit requirement would be one way of addressing concerns about the "lack of rigor" in the district, she said.
"As we went around and did meetings around the county and people were talking about increasing our rigor, increasing the value of what a Wayne County diploma means, this would put some meat back into our diploma," she said. "Our plan for this, if the board approves moving to 28 credits, we would phase it in so that our current juniors and seniors would stay at 24 credits because it wouldn't be fair to change the rules of the game on them."
The proposal calls for rising sophomores in the fall, the Class of 2019, to be required to have 26 credits, while incoming freshmen and beyond would be required to have 28 credits.
"Our trend that we've seen is that over the last three years the percentage of our students graduating with less than 28 credits has risen every year and that may be an effect of the fact that we lowered the requirement 10 years ago and that it's taking hold," she said. "That's a concerning trend to be aware of."
She said she plans to address the topic this week at the principals' meeting, with hopes of crafting a policy that will be brought before the board at its next meeting.
District Finance Officer Michael Hayes presented a smattering of contracts for approval, including a $1.2 million purchase of 14 new school buses and $65,000 for band uniforms at Eastern Wayne High School.
"The state has approved us to replace 14 of our yellow school buses," he told the board.
He said the state mandates which vendors buses can be purchased from and then provides funding for those items. The contracts were for $573,713 for seven buses from Gregory Poole Equipment and $584,820 for seven from Carolina Thomas.
Buses being replaced are taken off the road and turned over to surplus, Dr. Michael Dunsmore, superintendent, said. Based on the age and mileage, there is an amortization process, with the state typically taking the older buses back.
Board Chairman Chris West raised concerns about the activity buses that have high mileage and are in "really bad shape."
"I know we wouldn't take one of these new buses and replace them with activity buses," he said. "Would we look at the mileage and maybe just send some of the older activity buses back?"
Dunsmore replied that the subject would be part of the discussion for the upcoming budget.
The band uniforms at Eastern Wayne have been the subject of debate for years. A contingent of parents and students appeared before the board in 2002 complaining about "safety pins and paper clips" holding the uniforms together.
This contract, with Fruhauf Uniforms, purchases 125 regular uniforms, three complete corps drum major uniforms, three complete show drum major uniforms and a lead banner with frame.
The board also voted to change the date of next month's meeting due to a scheduling conflict. Instead of April 11, it will move to that Tuesday, April 12, at 1 p.m.