Earning Credit

Over the past week a large part of my time was trying to explain to students about how you earn credits in high school.  It is a valuable reminder for everyone.

High school is different than elementary and middle school.  In middle school, you take classes and each year you move on to the next grade and take all the classes for that grade.  In high school, you must earn credits for specified classes and the way you earn credit is by passing each semester of the class. 

So, for example, all students must earn 4 credits of English to graduate.  When you pass both semesters of English 1 during your freshman year, you move on to English 2 during your sophomore year.  If, unfortunately, you failed one of the semesters of English 1 then you are going to have to make that up before you can progress on to English 2.  Students who failed a semester will be able to make up the course either by repeating the class in summer school, repeating the class through credit recovery or repeating the class by retaking it during your sophomore year.  The bottom line is that you must REPEAT the class in some format.

Some classes (like English) have pre-requisites that students must meet in order to move on to the next level.  Other classes, like Science and Social Studies, do not have pre-requisites to move on to the next level so we will allow you to move from Physical Science to Biology or from World History to US History without first repeating the freshman year class.  Don’t misunderstand though, you will have to repeat the class at some point, but if you are not making it up during summer school, then you will likely be taking a freshman year class during your junior year.

As you are filling out your graduation requirements checklist you will notice that there are two lines next to each course - those are to represent each semester.  So, if you are a sophomore in Math 2 who had passed both semesters of Math 1 last year you get to place two check marks in the two slots next to Math 1, and if you passed Math 2 during 1st semester you can check off the first slot next to Math 2.  You can manage current classes in any way you want, but personally, I prefer to put a dot in those spots so that I know students are currently taking those classes and then, at the end of the year, when you have passed that class I change it over to a check mark as being successfully completed.

In order to earn sophomore status, students must have earned at least 5 credits.  To become a junior you will need 10 credits.  To be classified as a senior, you must have earned at least 15 credits.

If you have any questions about where you stand with the credits you have earned or what still remains, please don’t hesitate to stop by and see me.