Gainesville looks at reducing graduation requirements

As Gainesville City Schools considers reducing the needed credits from 24 to the state-required 23, school leaders say the move doesn’t make classes easier but does enable students to more easily graduate in four years.

“I have learned that students that desire to take more courses do, and many of them graduate in four years,” Gainesville Superintendent Merrianne Dyer said. “However, some students don’t make that four-year mark because of that additional unit.”

Gainesville High School students were initially required to complete 28 credits to graduate. Gainesville City Schools eventually switched to requiring 24 for the graduating class of 2012. Georgia only requires 23, and when Wood’s Mill Academy was established in 2010, it was also under the 23-credit rule.

Federal requirements make the overall graduation rate look lower than it really is, Dyer said, explaining if students don’t graduate in four years they are counted as dropouts; in reality, more students graduate from the high school than reflected in the state-released graduation rate, but it takes longer than four years.

Under the four-year rate, Gainesville High was at 58 percent for 2011 and 66.5 percent in 2012. The recently released 2013 graduation rate was 70 percent.

via Gainesville looks at reducing graduation requirements.