Edgewood Senior High School’s Class of 2014 will need two more credits to graduate than did prior years’ classes.
The change to a minimum of 27 credits comes as a result of action taken by the Buckeye Local Schools Board of Education last month. Superintendent Nancy Williams says the change will affect students who are in the eighth grade this year.
The increase includes an extra unit of mathematics, as required by the Ohio Core legislation. Three credits are required currently; the new regulation stipulates that Algebra II or an equivalent course be one of the fourth mathematics classes.
The new graduation requirements also stipulate students take a one-half-credit managed-transitions course in their freshman year and a one-half-credit financial literacy course in their junior year. Managed transitions is a family and consumer sciences course that deals with social and emotional transitions between junior and senior high school.
Williams said students should not have any problem meeting the new requirement as they can earn 32 credits during their four years in high school. She said there should not be a need to hire additional staff to teach the subjects.
The recommendation to increase the number of credits was made by the Building Leadership Team, which also studied the issue of block scheduling. Edgewood has used the approach for the past decade.
Rather than the traditional approach of eight 42- to 45-minute periods a day, block scheduling provides four 80-minute periods and a short enrichment period. As a result, students take up to four classes per day, and complete a one-credit course, in a semester.
The 13-member team of administrators and certified and operational staff conducted the review of block scheduling and concluded the plan ought to remain in place for the 2010-11 school year. The team reported that 89 percent of the faculty prefers a block schedule over a traditional one, and 67 percent of 281 students surveyed from all four graduating classes prefer the block system. Some of the reasons faculty and students cite is that block scheduling:
n Offers improved learning because students can cover more material and devote more time to labs, projects and small-group work;
n Offers the opportunity to focus on fewer subjects but in more depth;
n Offers the chance for students to take more subjects throughout high school.
Both students and faculty acknowledged the challenge of making up work when a student is absent and continuity between courses, like foreign languages, when spread out over four years.
Their findings were presented to the board of education during its January meeting, and a slide show of that presentation is online at the district’s Web site (www.buckeyeschools.info).
Local News
Edgewood students will need two more credits to graduate
Block scheduling to stay at high school
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