The Kansas Board of Education has established new state-wide requirements for high school graduation, effective with the class of 2028 (current freshman) and beyond. Checking off the many boxes that come with receiving a diploma at the end of four years can be a complicated endeavor of balancing the classes you have to take and the classes you want to take. For freshmen, enrollment is often the first time they see graduation requirements and it can lead to them making some difficult decisions.
“When I looked at the requirements I realized that I would need classes that take up spots in my schedule of other things I want to do,” Eden Yedi (9) said.
There aren’t enough hours in the school day for students to get to learn everything that is interesting to them. The updates to graduation requirements include the addition of STEM coursework and communication-focused English curriculum.
Most of the changes revolve around activities students do outside of direct class time. With these new requirements, the Kansas Board of Education will require high school students to show what are called Post Secondary Assets. Post Secondary Assets include a wide range of things like Seals of Biliteracy, community service hours, Industry-Recognized Certifications, state assessment scores, and other similar achievements and activities. Students will be asked to choose two things to complete from a list of options in order to graduate. All of these new requirements are getting a variety of reactions from students.
“It will be good to get me more involved with the school and my area with the added community service and other kinds of things,” Yedi said.
Kansas is not the first state to add these requirements to the graduation standards. Maryland requires all students to perform 75 hours of community service in order to graduate, and Florida requires what they call service learning hours. The addition of out-of-class requirements has been shown to increase student success and make the transition into higher education, the workforce, or the military go smoother.
“The new requirements will encourage [students] to be active in their post-secondary planning – regardless of what that looks like for the individual” said the Olathe North college and career counselor Logan Van Winkle.
New requirements also mean new plans from staff at Olathe North and across the district on how to best assist their students. Providing encouragement and opportunities for students to thrive has been and will continue to be a priority for staff members. Van Winkle sees his main job as trying to communicate with students about these opportunities before they reach their senior year.
“We want to be intentional as [students] make their way through high school to give them every opportunity we can to hit the marks they need to be successful after they leave our halls.” Van Winkle added.
Some students still feel like the changes are unnecessary. Many graduates have gone on to find big success after high school under the old requirements. As far as the Post Secondary Assets, students have been unintentionally completing them for years without the formal and specific requirements in place.
“I don’t really see the point in changing anything, the original requirements were just fine,” Annie Nguyen (9) said.
