California’s education department expects local schools to complete state graduation requirements with flexible types of assignments and grading. School authorities must still request minimum graduation requirement waivers for specific students from the state.
New Mexico’s government urges schools to adopt pass-fail grades for students as part of its strategy to make up for a canceled school year. New rules allow seniors to use qualifying scores from college entrance exams or complete locally designed projects to attain class credit.
Students in danger of not graduating have until June 19 to catch up, or have the option of taking summer courses and appealing to local and state authorities if they can’t.
“They’re first and foremost what we’re guiding districts to focus on,” New Mexico superintendent Ryan Stewart said of his state’s seniors.
“We’ve had every creative way that we can think of to try to connect students with their teachers and a positive learning experience,” he said. “We know it gets a lot harder when you get to more remote places that have less access to technology and electricity and some of that basic infrastructure.”
Colleges might have to rethink how they treat freshmen who didn’t complete a normal last year of high school.
Colleges should invest more in programs that offer intensive tutoring, King said, and argued that any future congressional stimulus bill should send money to help minority-serving institutions and community colleges.
“There is both work that states and districts need to do now to help students complete the year successfully, but then there’s work that higher ed and workforce development programs need to do to prepare to support entering students who will have missed significant portions of the school year as a result of the closures,” King said.
Accomplishing all of that will be challenging, and likely will not replace the loss of a revered tradition across the country: a traditional high school graduation.
“I know many of our families and even our students have expressed strong concerns about the loss of their graduation ceremonies,” Hoffman said.
“I feel very sympathetic towards that, and I’m hopeful that we’ll see innovative ways for each school to celebrate their seniors this spring. But I know that for many, it’s not going to feel the same.”
Source: politico.com
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