The Carson City school board has reviewed updates to Regulation 517 signifying recent requirements for students graduating from the school district in the class of 2022 and beyond.
In her presentation to the school board on July 13, Associate Superintendent Tasha Fuson said the Nevada Department of Education had made a number of decisions regarding specific requirements of the bill impacting the district’s own obligations for the class of 2022 and proceeding classes.
The district’s honors diploma has been phased out, for example, Fuson said, with the College and Career Ready diploma phased in during the 2013 legislative session change related to the classes of 2019 and 2020.
Course names also have undergone certain modifications, with “Social Studies” being changed to “Geography” or “World History” to give students an option to fulfill their credits. The district also changed its “Computer Science and Application” language to “Computer Science and Technology” since students pick up more skills in programming rather than learning how to use Microsoft Word or Excel, Fuson said. This clarifies there are more “behind the scenes” components to computer science.
With Senate Bill 322’s passage in 2017 as a condition for graduation, public high school students are now required to take a civics exam to earn a diploma. The exam presents questions determined by the district and is identical to the civics portion of the naturalization test adopted by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency of Homeland Security.
Fuson said of as July 1, 2019, all students must take the test for participation purposes, so language has been changed in the district’s regulation showing the end-of-course requirements have been removed.
Other minor changes were made or removed for further clarification, Fuson said, and Carson High School’s senior project, a site-specific prerequisite, also will be found in the school’s handbook, but updates are in progress and forthcoming, Fuson told the board.
