SPRINGFIELD – The School Committee has tweaked high school graduation requirements, adding options for this year’s seniors and requiring U.S. history for students in the Class of 2027.
The committee plans to take a deeper look at the current requirements to earn a passing grade — questioning if a D- grade is enough to ensure students are prepared for the future.
Massachusetts voters overwhelmingly banned the use of Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment Systems as a graduation in a referendum question in November 2024. The state has left it up to individual districts to set graduation standards while Department of Elementary and Secondary Education officials work out a standardized plan.
The Springfield School Committee agreed students would have to pass five courses or their equivalents to replace the MCAS: English 9 and 10, algebra 1 or 2 and geometry, and one laboratory science course in biology, chemistry or physics.
To earn a diploma, students must also complete the city’s requirements, which remain unchanged. Some of those are four units of English, three each of social studies, science and math and eight units of electives.
The new plan will allow students to graduate if they pass any two years of English from ninth through 12th grade. It also allows students to fulfill the science requirement with a passing grade in a technology or engineering course as well as biology, physics or chemistry. The math requirement calls for a passing grade in algebra 1 and geometry but does not include algebra 2, said Yolanda Johnson, chief of student services.
A committee of educators agreed to add a U.S. history course to its graduation requirements for this year’s juniors.
The committee is also looking at some courses to add in the future, such as financial literacy, civics, college and career readiness and African-American and Latino-American history.
“We realize there may be a need to revisit this,” Johnson said.
A state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education committee is developing a standardized set of graduation requirements which it is expected to complete and report in December.
While the School Committee was not concerned about the changes, members did air concerns that a D- was considered a passing grade.
“We want to give all our students the best opportunity,” said Mayor Domenic Sarno, who is the School Committee chairman. “I thought it would be a C or a D. D- is a little too low.”
While she agreed that it is worthwhile to look at the grading policy, changing it now could have serious implications for this year’s seniors and other high school upperclassmen, said School Committee member Denise Hurst.
“There are a lot of pieces to this,” said LaTonia Monroe Naylor, School Committee vice chairwoman. “Let’s do this together. There definitely needs to be a conversation and we should have a town hall discussion with parents and kids.”
She agreed she doesn’t want the grading policy to set students up for failure.
One of the School Department’s goals is to ensure college and career readiness for all students. As part of that, educators will be talking about aligning the grading system to ensure students are prepared when they graduate, Superintendent Sonia Dinnall said.