3.0 GRADUATION REQUIREMENTS:

Students beginning their high school program in September 1998 will be the first group to graduate under the revised graduation requirements shown in the table below. Since the revised courses in English Language Arts will not be ready for full implementation until September 2000, students beginning in September 1998 and September 1999 will fulfill the combined Core and Optional Language Arts requirement of 8 credits (6 Core and 2 Optional) through a combination of existing courses in English Language and English Literature, unless they are in schools piloting English 1211 or 1212. Similarly, existing courses in Mathematics, Science and Technology will be used to meet the new 12 credit requirement in Mathematics/Science/Technology.


Table 3.1 - Graduation Requirements (Implemented 1998-1999)

• at least 20 of the total credits must be obtained beyond Level I, and
  
  
• at least 9 of the total credits must be beyond Level II and be attained in the Newfoundland Senior High School Program.

• Note: An Alternate Course (i.e. a course with a third digit of 7) will count as a Local Course for graduation purposes. As stated in the table above a student cannot use more than 4 local course credits out of the 36 credits to graduate.

4.0 IMPLEMENTATION OF THE REVISED GRADUATION REQUIREMENTS

Given the fact that the revised programs will not be fully implemented until 2000 it will take four years for the first cohort of students to graduate under the revised graduation requirements with the new courses. Table 4.1 attempts to summarize the situation each year until the year 2002.


For the school year 1998-1999:

• students entering the high school program for the first time in September 1998 will graduate under the new graduation requirements using existing courses.
  
  
• students who began the program in September 1997 or earlier will continue to be evaluated against the old requirements.

For the next several years it will be extremely important, when registering students in the fall of each year, to distinguish between students who are new to the program and those who are already enrolled in the program. This distinction will be used by the High School Certification System to establish which set of graduation requirements a particular group of students will be evaluated against. The distinction will be achieved using the ADD/CHANGE/TRANSFER code on the student registration form. Students new to the program each year will be coded as ADD. Students already registered in the senior high program and who are transferring from one school to another will be coded as TRANSFER. CHANGE will be used for those students whose demographic information requires updating. Those students already enrolled in the senior high program who have remained in the same school as the previous year, with the same demographic information, will not need to be re-registered.


For the school year 1999-2000:

• students entering the high school program for the first time in September 1999 will graduate under the new graduation requirements using the new and existing courses
  
  
• students who began the program in September 1998 will graduate under the revised graduation requirements but continue with the old course sequences in Language Arts and Mathematics
  
  
• students who began the program in September 1997 or earlier will continue to be evaluated against the old requirements with the old course sequences in Language Arts and Mathematics

TABLE 4.1
SCHEDULED IMPLEMENTATION OF THE
REVISED HIGH SCHOOL PROGRAM (1998-2001)

¹ 4th year represents students who previously attended senior high for at least three years.

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