A flexible voting process Thursday created more rigid Oregon high school graduation requirements.
The State Board of Education adopted rules to add a half credit each in higher education and career path skills and personal financial education to graduation requirements starting in 2027. But the drama Thursday highlighted educators’ problems with the rules.
The 2023 Legislature passed Senate Bill 3 requiring the credits. Until two weeks ago, it looked like schools would be able to offer those credits as part of related courses.
A Legislative Counsel ruling, though, said the credits had to be offered as standalone courses. The state board initially balked Thursday, with two members opposing a proposal for stand-alone courses and another abstaining.
Second Vice Chair Shimiko Montgomery voted against, noting that schools needed implementation flexibility because they had not been given additional resources for the mandate. “Just saying they will figure it out” isn’t good enough, she said, and the Legislature needs to provide funds.
“If our districts are strained, our staff are strained, and they cannot serve our students well,” said Montgomery, a former Bend-La Pine School Board member. “I cannot condone adding any more requirements in a severely resource-strained time of our schools and continue to ask our schools to do more with less.”
The first vote failed, and board Chair Guadalupe Martinez Zapata said the board would need to consult with education partners for a way forward.
About an hour later, though, the board revisited the SB 3 rules, and Montgomery changed her vote. She said she was concerned about a crunched implementation timeline for schools if they didn’t move forward now but she added a plea for the Legislature to “fully fund” schools.
The adopted rules are temporary because of a clerical error, but the final rules are unlikely to be changed, according to Martinez Zapata.
When SB 3 was moving through the Legislature, everyone agreed students should be better educated on personal finance and their options after high school. School leaders and education advocates, including OSBA, widely supported the bill with the stated understanding that the credits could be earned in conjunction with other courses.
The enrolled law stated: “The State Board of Education may adopt by rule requirements for courses, including teachers of courses, related to higher education and career path skills and personal financial education that allow the courses to satisfy multiple credit requirements for a high school diploma, including mathematics.”
The Oregon Department of Education reviewed the hearings, met with other agencies and held public engagement sessions with teachers, administrators, higher education staff, young people, business and industry partners, content experts and parents.
ODE developed two options. Option A would have allowed both credit requirements to be integrated with other courses as long as they met the standards set by the State Board of Education. Option B would have allowed an integrated course to fulfill the higher education and career path credit while requiring a stand-alone personal finance course that could also satisfy other course requirements, such as economics or algebra.
Both options included a waiver to allow schools until 2028 to implement the requirements because it takes time to find or train the right teachers and to set up curriculum in alignment with other graduation requirements.
Oregon has among the highest state credit requirements for graduation. Students must earn 24 credits, including four language arts credits, three mathematics credits, three science credits, three social sciences credits, a health credit, a physical education credit and a half credit of civics.
Education advocates argue that adding stand-alone courses with Oregon’s already packed requirements will limit the multidisciplinary paths students will be able to explore.
During the legislative hearings, education advocates argued for maximum flexibility based on local circumstances while warning of potential costs. SB 3 was given an indeterminate fiscal cost based on schools being able to use existing teachers and courses to meet the requirements.
“That fiscal would have looked totally different if we had known we would have to hire or train teachers and significantly rework graduation tracks,” said OSBA Legislative Services Director Lori Sattenspiel.
The cost and challenge are potentially higher for smaller and rural schools that have fewer teachers and course options.
ODE’s public engagement groups agreed that flexibility is vitally important, with more than two-thirds of participants preferring Option A. ODE recommended option A to the state board in an April hearing.
OSBA, the Coalition of Oregon School Administrators, the Oregon Education Association and the East Multnomah County Schools also urged the state board to adopt option A.
“This flexibility is what the community has asked for and most closely mirrors the voices of Oregonians who have shared their lived experiences in schools and classrooms with decision and policy makers,” they wrote in a letter to the state board.
After a State Board of Education hearing in April, though, credit union representatives and legislators protested against integrated options, particularly for the personal financial education. They wanted stand-alone courses.
An Interim Senate Education Committee hearing on May 30 drove a stake through education leaders’ sought-after flexibility.
At the request of Sen. Michael Dembrow, the Legislative Counsel reviewed the two proposed rules. The counsel determined the Legislature intended stand-alone courses and the proposals were not “within the intent and scope of the enabling legislation.” Such a determination opened the proposals to potential legal challenges and the courts’ invalidating the rules.
Last week, ODE crafted option C to be in compliance with the counsel determination. When ODE presented the three proposals to the state board, Director Charlene Williams declined to make an ODE recommendation.
With the adoption of option C, students starting with the graduating class of 2027 must have passed a half-credit stand-alone course in both personal finance and after-high school paths. Those courses can still satisfy other credit requirements. Districts can apply for a one-year waiver to start the requirements with the class of 2028.
The state board’s next scheduled meeting is Sept. 19.
– Jake Arnold, OSBA
[email protected]
