At its meeting on Tuesday, May 14, the Archuleta School District Board of Education (BOE) voted unanimously to approve the first reading of the district’s new graduation requirements, which would take effect beginning with the class of 2025-2026.
Only a few comments were made before board member Amanda Schick motioned to approve the new requirements. The motion was seconded by board member Butch Mackey and was unanimously approved by the board.
Board members Tim Taylor and Dana Guinn were not in attendance.
Board president Bob Lynch commeted, “We worked on this a long time,” prior to voting on the motion.
Superintendent Rick Holt clarified that the only change being made from the most recently presented requirements is when the new requirements would become effective.
Holt explained that the graduating class of 2024-2025 will still be under the existing requirements and that the new graduation requirements would take effect with the class of 2025-2026.
For the new graduation requirements to be officially adopted, the BOE will have to approve a second reading of the new requirements at its next meeting, scheduled for June 11 at 6 p.m. in the Pagosa Springs Middle School library located at 309 Lewis St.
The district’s current graduation requirements were adopted in June 2014 and most recently revised in August 2017.
Pagosa Springs High School Principal Sean O’Donnell explained in previous BOE meetings that the new graduation requirements require a total of 25 credits, compared to the current requirement of 28 credits.
According to the documents included with the meeting’s agenda, the existing graduation requirements provided two credit options for students, one being the career/technical course credit requirements and the other option being the four-year college credit requirements.
The new graduation requirements will have just one credit option for students.
The credit requirements under the new graduation requirements include four English credits, three social studies credits, three math credits, one PE/health credit, one fine arts or CTE credit, and 10 additional course credits.
The existing credit requirements under the career/technical option include three English credits, one speech and writing credit, one senior literature credit, three math credits, two science credits, three social studies credits, one computer science credit, one PE/health credit, one fitness/PE credit and 11 elective credits.
The existing requirements for the four-year college option are the same as the career/technical option with the exception of four math credits instead of three, three science credits instead of two, the addition of one foreign language credit and eight elective credits.
The new graduation requirements also have higher SAT score requirements, with an English score of 470 and a mathematics score of 500.
The existing requirements call for an English score of 430 and a mathematics score of 460.
The new graduation requirements will still require students to complete an individual career and academic plan, as currently outlined in the existing graduation requirements.
clayton@pagosasun.com
