By Camas Frank ~
During a special meeting Nov. 20, the San Luis Coastal Unified School District Board took a good look at what it actually takes, and maybe what it should take, to get a diploma from one of their institutions.
A follow–up meeting, if any changes to current policy are considered, would likely take place Jan. 15 with parents or anyone else with a stake in the matter urged to attend.
However, said Rick Robinett, the district’s assistant superintendent in charge of educational resources, extreme changes aren’t likely.
What the administrators are most concerned with are the requirements of Assembly Bill 1012, which mandates that all students, even seniors, have a full educational day.
That law kicks in for the 2016-17 school year and will mean that students will no longer be able to get credit for being a classroom teacher’s assistant during a period, as that will not be considered “educational.” And seniors will have to find something to do on campus until the last bell rings.
The reasoning behind the bill was pretty easy to understand for schools in big cities — to cut down the truancy rate and hopefully increase the graduation rate by making sure kids are accounted for during the school day.
Work experience education is still allowed, but the district may have to make some changes in its program to adhere to the letter of the law.
What the trustees will really have to consider early next year is if they’d like to go for broke and increase overall academic rigor to match college prep standards for simple graduation.
That’s a mixed blessing, Robinett said, currently about two-thirds of SLO High seniors graduate with a degree that prepares them for college. The portion at Morro Bay High School is about one third. The reason for the disparity has been widely discussed but exact cause and effects, not to mention solutions, remain elusive. Increasing the overall standard could drive up achievement but it could also drive up the drop out rate. The official drop out rates are hovering around 1.5% for both district high schools.
A more likely change would be to up requirements to 3-years of science education over the current two. The reason for that would be to maintain pace with standardized testing, which already quizzes students on science over three years. The thinking is that it would be better for the facts to be fresh in mind rather than test them on the previous year’s material.