Helping seniors cross finish line
Grad requirements remain, but schools recognize pandemic difficulties
After a whirlwind year of remote learning, public health protocols and social isolation, high school seniors in Connecticut are almost ready to graduate.
Despite the challenges of the year, superintendents from across the state said they are beholden to state requirements for high school graduation, so graduation standards will remain fairly consistent statewide. Although many superintendents said they would not reduce students’ credit requirements for graduation, many said their districts would be making additional efforts to help their students cross the finish line.
Some of the most common changes in districts that are taking a different approach include providing extra credit recovery opportunities, waiving community service requirements and eliminating local testing requirements.
“Obviously it is a very challenging environment, but I think for the most part the majority of students have responded well to keeping up with the work and doing what they need to do, and educators have reached out in many different ways to assist students with the requirements,” said Fran Rabinowitz, executive director of the Connecticut Association of Public School Superintendents.
Patrice McCarthy, deputy director for the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education, said this year’s seniors are farther along in the process of earning credits toward graduation than other high school students at the time the pandemic hit in March 2020. The state has 205 school districts and 1,515 schools with an 88.5 percent four-year cohort graduation rate, according to the state Department of Education. In the 2019-20 school year, the latest year for which information is available on the agency’s data site, there were 41,014 high school seniors in the state.
The state’s current minimum requirement for graduation is 20 credits; when Public Act 10-111 passed in 2010, the expectation was for students in the class of 2018 to need 25 credits to graduate. Following some amendments, that requirement has now been delayed to the class of 2023 — or students currently in the tenth grade.
In anticipation of the change, some school districts, such as New Haven, preemptively increased its minimum graduation requirements.
New Haven’s Board of Education recognized that some students have been distracted from school for various reasons during the first year of the pandemic — including poor internet service, working jobs or taking on child care duties to support their families, or emotional withdrawal — and voted to allow students to graduate with a minimum of 25 credits, while some schools had required more.
Some of the New Haven’s magnet schools require 29 credits for graduation because of their specialized curriculum; students at those schools who have the 25 credits they would need to graduate from one of the district’s comprehensive high schools but not from their school will receive a diploma from the district instead of their high school.
Ed Joyner, chairman of the New Haven school board’s teaching and learning committee, said the recommendation would apply only during the pandemic.
Helping students
In Stamford, students at the Academy of Information Technology and Engineering must earn 25 credits; at the district’s other two high schools, the graduation requirement is the state minimum of 20. District leaders said they have not changed that requirement this year.
After the first quarter of the school year, the district ran a credit recovery program through the online education service Edgenuity for students who were struggling or had attendance issues.
“We don’t wait until summer to say, ‘Oh, look, you failed a bunch of courses, let’s get you caught up,’” said Amy Beldotti, associate superintendent for teaching and learning in Stamford. “We do try to offer kids opportunities during the school year to recover credits so they can graduate in June.”
Beldotti said the district did not consider reducing graduation requirements for students.
“We have to have high expectations for our kids, so we wouldn’t want to issue a diploma where a student hasn’t met the requirements of the state and of our local Board of Education,” she said.
Nevertheless, school district leaders across the state recognize the pandemic has had an impact on student engagement and performance. One of the most common responses throughout the state has been for school districts to increase their summertime and online credit recovery options in lieu of waiving graduation requirements.
Such an approach has been taken in Bridgeport, Danbury, Trumbull, Ridgefield, Norwalk, Fairfield and Monroe.
Bridgeport Superintendent of Schools Michael Testani said the district has its usual summer program for seniors to recover the necessary credits to graduate. In Trumbull, Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum Susan Iwanicki said there would be a supplemental summer course for credit recovery.
“We are working on plans for high school summer school programs that include a credit recovery program to re-engage students in the core curriculum and provide those who need them with the necessary credits to graduate,” said Norwalk Public Schools spokeswoman Brenda Wilcox Williams.
Norwalk also launched a “twilight academy” this year, providing students opportunities to earn credits during hours outside the school day; New Haven has announced it will use federal aid funding to launch a similar initiative for students.
In Monroe, school officials said they will individualize instruction for students who need the assistance meeting the district’s 22.5credit requirement for graduation.
Leaders from several school districts said concerns about graduation emerge every year, and they will continue to use the existing credit recovery infrastructure they have to ensure students succeed and graduate this year.
“Our school counselors, mental health staff, teachers, and administrators consistently communicate regarding students of concern and develop a plan to support their progress,” said Darien Superintendent of Schools Alan Addley.
“The pandemic demands that we be creative and innovative in the ways in which we support students and we regularly evaluate the needs of our students and how we can best support them in these most challenging times,” Addley said.
Changes
In school districts that have made changes to their graduation requirements, one of the first things to go has been a community service graduation requirement.
“The traditional community service opportunities have been limited by the pandemic, and I think it is appropriate to recognize that reality and make those adjustments so students aren’t penalized for something that wasn’t possible to engage in,” said McCarthy, of CABE.
In Shelton, students have a requirement of 25.4 credits to graduate; students earn 0.1 credit each year for 10 hours of community service. Shelton Superintendent of Schools Ken Saranich said that requirement has been waived for both the 2020 and 2021 school years.
In Regional School District 17, which includes Haddam and Killingworth, Superintendent of Schools Holly Hageman said that district also is waiving its community service graduation requirement because access to those opportunities has been so limited.
Middletown High School Principal Colleen Weiner said the school remains “flexible” around its community service requirements.
The number of credits necessary for graduation remains at 22 this year, Weiner said. During remote and hybrid learning, students still were able to fulfill their requirements for physical education, music and other electives that traditionally have been done in person.
Because of the added stress and inconsistent exposure to classroom learning, several school districts have placed less of an emphasis on standardized testing, or have eliminated it altogether this year.
“Our current seniors in the class of 2021 will demonstrate achievement through curriculum mastery. This will be conducted within the classroom setting rather than through standardized testing,” said Amy Fedigan, assistant superintendent of Milford Public Schools.
“We are offering an extended learning program at our high schools as we recognize some students may be experiencing social-emotional and academic challenges due to the pandemic,” Fedigan said. “This program gives students the option of receiving the ‘just-in-time’ support they need in order to continue to build their skills while receiving personalized high-quality instruction alongside a caring and knowledgeable adult in order to complete the school year successfully.”
Laurie Pallin, superintendent of Montville schools, said the graduation requirements at the district’s high school have not changed.
“We have decided not to give mid-year and final exams this year, but they are not part of the graduation requirements,” she said.
At Regional School District 12, which includes Bridgewater, Roxbury and Washington, Superintendent Megan Bennett said students are required to complete a project as a graduation requirement. Bennett said the district adjusted after it became clear that students would not be able to hold public events as they had in prior years.
Anthony Serio, superintendent of the Gilbert School in Winsted, said every student has been on “some form of academic assistance” this year, but the school’s projectbased learning structure is a way for students to remain engaged.
“It is a lot of fun for them,” he said.
Rabinowitz, from the Connecticut Association of Public School Superintendents, said that as a career educator, she believes it is more important for students to demonstrate subject mastery than to pass a test. She said she supports the efforts of school districts that did away with non-mandated standardized testing.
“We want to make sure our students have the knowledge to be successful post-Grade 12,” she said.
“I do think it’s important right now that we concentrate on those seniors, making sure they have what they need,” Rabinowitz said. “At the same time, if we really find a student is not ready or has not met the requirements, we also can’t send them forward just because they’re in Grade 12.” Hearst staffers Rob Ryser, Donald Eng, Richard Chumney, Brian Gioiele, Susan Shultz, Katrina Koerting, Saul Flores, Christine DeRosa, Alyssa Seidman, Cayla Bamberger, Sandra Fox, Cassandra Day, Emily Olson and Ignacio Laguarda contributed to this report. brian.zahn@hearstmediact.com