For graduating seniors there are some differences in requirements from past years compared to the 2022 school year.
On-Time Graduation Specialist, Sarah Ravindranath, said credit retrieval is an option for all students who have failed a class at any point in time in high school. Once a class is failed, an equivalent class will be assigned to the student in an app called Edgenuity made by the counselors.
“Edgenuity is the only thing we use to retrieve credits, so when a student fails a class they are given an equivalent course. It is entirely online and is all self-paced. The nice thing about it is that it can be done any time of the day,” Ravindranath said.
During the final week of school for seniors the dates are to be as followed: the last day of school is Thursday, June 9, graduation practice on Friday, June 10 and graduation on Saturday, June 11 at the Washington State Fairgrounds. According to Ravindranath, either June 8 or 9 will be the deadline for credit retrieval and if the credits aren’t earned by that date the senior won’t walk with their class.
“It’s not that you won’t graduate, but you just won’t walk. Because we can’t let you walk if you didn’t finish your work. It’s not like the end of the road… last year I had a couple of students who had a couple of Edgenuity classes and all they did for that week (after graduation before school ended for other grades) was work on Edge. They still were 2021 graduates but just didn’t get to walk.” Ravindranath said.
Students who want to graduate with the class of 2022 must complete all requirements by August of the same year.
“Technically you’re able to be a 2022 graduate until August of 2022,” Ravindranath said. “Obviously, we want, and we work all year long, to make sure and many students as possible get to meet that deadline and walk with their class but sometimes things happen. Whether it is a family emergency, a medical emergency, a mental health crisis or otherwise. Things happen.”
For all students, this past fall the district introduced a system called Xello to organize the “High School and Beyond” plan for all students, making it a requirement for graduation.
Career Specialist Shelley Jellison, who works with Xello as it pertains to high school students, says the Xello lessons will be completed in Homeroom in preparation for Senior Boards in April.
“Right now, we are planning to be done with all Xello lessons by March and then in April we are going to do our senior boards,” Jellison said. “How it’s going to work is all of our seniors will be assigned to a faculty member.”
During Senior Boards one faculty member will be assigned to an individual student, they will go over that student’s resume and High School and Beyond Plan that was completed in Xello. Each lesson in Xello follows a coursework of lessons teaching how to prepare for the future.
“This next week the lesson for seniors is going to be investing in your future. It is really looking at what pathway you’re taking after high school,” Jellison said. “For example, college: how much will be your tuition, are you living on campus or away from home, the estimation cost of books. It’s the same thing as if you’re going into an apprenticeship.”
The High School and Beyond Plan is a graduation requirement throughout the state of Washington. According to the Office of the Superintendent of Public instruction, students work with school counselors and advisers to create their own individual plan. This plan, according to OSPI, should be revised annually to, “accommodate changing interests of postsecondary goals on what [students] expect to do the year following graduation from high school.”
Xello helps streamline the process to help students recognize what they want to do after high school, showing lessons on how to get jobs, apply to colleges, scholarships and more. Xello also shows options a student can take to reach a specific dream of theirs relating to jobs or career goals.
“If you already have a professional resume then you would not need to make one in Xello; you would just need to upload it. The lessons we are doing you would still need to complete,” Jellison said.
For seniors with jobs, they can just copy their already-made resume link into Xello, the same for community service hours. Although community service hours aren’t required for the class of 2022, the school board will accept community service hour submissions to be looked over at senior boards.
“Just like last year we didn’t want to hold seniors to a graduation requirement that would be difficult for them to complete or put their health at risk,” Jellison said. “However, students that have already completed community service can still upload those into Xello.”
