Public Hearing Scheduled: 180-51, graduation requirements

The most meaningful learning experiences are relevant, engaging, and hands-on. These experiences should prepare students for graduation and their next steps. For some students, a new, performance-based graduation pathway option can align with post-high school goals, inspire greatness, and recognize real-world experiences. To make this new pathway the most meaningful it can be, we need your help designing rules for it.

After three years of research, and with support from communities across Washington, lawmakers in the State House passed House Bill 1308 to add a performance-based option to the graduation pathways requirement.

Our students are capable of exceeding standards—and showing us how they do it. We see this in learning environments like Gibson Ek in Issaquah. Gibson Ek requires students to document their learning in a “portfolio” that shows their best, most impactful work, and their journey to get there. Students shadow and intern with real companies or organizations, develop problem-solving solutions for their community, and meet standards in all subjects with evidence-based projects. These learning experiences are all analyzed and documented, usually online.

It's the end of the school year, let's reflect. Graduation pathway options went into effect for the Class of 2020, but the last two years have been anything but typical. How, after more than two years in a pandemic, do we see our students' pathways to graduation and life after high school? What can our system set as the standard requirements for achieving the Washington State high school diploma? What do our students need?