With 4,000 high school seniors in Maryland still failing to meet new graduation requirements, the state school board yesterday decided to allow principals and local superintendents to waive the requirements for students with extenuating circumstances.
The emergency regulation, which passed unanimously, is designed for those students who can't meet the requirements "through no fault of their own," said state schools chief Nancy S. Grasmick. She estimated that a few hundred students would receive the waiver.
While the language in the regulation leaves the matter of who will qualify open to interpretation by the superintendents, Grasmick said they understand it is to be used in limited circumstances and only for the Class of 2009. The regulation will expire in a year.
The graduation requirements were put in place to raise academic performance so that graduates are adequately prepared. For the first time, current seniors must pass the High School Assessments, a series of four tests in algebra, biology, American government and 10th grade English. Students who fail a test twice may do projects to achieve a passing score, but even so, many students are running out of time to complete the work.
"I think this would apply to very, very few kids, particularly in Howard County. At most it would be a handful. It is not a carte blanche for superintendents to get kids out of the requirements for the HSAs," said Sydney L. Cousin, Howard's superintendent.
Even the principal at Northwestern High School in Baltimore, which has one of the state's highest rates of failure to pass the HSAs, said the waiver shouldn't be used indiscriminately. "I think as long as it doesn't become a substitution for high standards it is a good thing," said Jason Hartling. He said he has many students who have to do projects because they have failed the test, and he doesn't want them to believe they won't have to do the work. "Ultimately, my students have to understand that they need to pass the test or demonstrate the standard in another way."
It is not designed, state officials said, for students who have refused the extra help after school or on Saturdays and who lack motivation to pass the classes.
The regulation attempts to address some of the questions of fairness that have swirled around the new requirement. Some education advocates have argued that not all students have access to tutoring or extra help when they are failing the courses, and that many of the students now in high school have not had the benefit of the increased levels of state funding as younger children.
