Virginia high school is going to look different for the freshmen who enroll in 2018.
Even the idea of high school will be different, according to architects of a plan that the State Board of Education will flesh out over the next two years.
The four-year quest for class credits, verified by standardized tests, that students and parents now know will morph into a pair of two-year sections with multiple paths to graduation.
Many core classes will be taught in those first two years. Then students will have a choice: A path to a four-year college degree, preparations for a two-year community college degree or the chance to leave high school with a certification that says they're ready to go to work in one of several industries, with the options based partly on what local businesses say they need from the workforce.
Internships and apprenticeships will be worth credit toward high school graduation. The push to emphasize job skills in high school, already well underway on the Peninsula and around the state, will accelerate.
"This is a game changer," said state Sen. John Miller, who carried legislation this session laying out the basics of what he called a "very substantial redesign."
"When you and I went to high school ... seat time was a big deal," said Miller, D-Newport News. "And that is going to be gone. And in its place we're now going to have the flexibility to award credits to students who get internships or apprenticeships or go and earn industry certifications."
The state board has to finalize dozens of details, and the legislation that laid this path out requires two public hearings in each of eight regions around the state between now and December 2017, when final regulations should be ready. They go into effect starting with the 2018 school year, but only for freshmen.
Students who start high school before then would graduate under the old system, according to Senate Bill 336 and its identical companion, House Bill 895.
The basics have widespread, bipartisan support from state leaders. Both bills passed nearly unanimously this past session, and Gov. Terry McAuliffe has backed the plan enthusiastically.
"Ten years from now we will come back and look at high school, and students will be more engaged," McAuliffe's secretary of education, Anne Holton, said. "And I think you will see, over time, a breaking down of walls between the classroom and the community."
There will be more room to learn through failure and experience, Holton said. Perhaps community college assessment tests could be taken in lieu of current high schools tests, she said. Maybe that could happen in the 10th grade, she said, so remedial classes could come before college enrollment.
This is not an entirely new philosophy, but a shift in state regulations to catch up to what some schools already are doing. The plan also expands this existing philosophy into a core expectation statewide.
The state now encourages schools to build partnerships with local businesses to train students, and systems can get permission to substitute industry certification and state licensure exams for Standards of Learning tests.
The state also sets annual goals for every school division when it comes to industry certifications and licensures. In the 2013-14 school year, Virginia students earned more than 103,000 of these credentials.
Del. Tag Greason, R-Ashburn, an influential House Republican on education issues, said the state has dealt with this issue piecemeal, now it's time to do so holistically.
The "Profile of a Virginia Graduate" the state board will develop to lay out what knowledge and skills students should acquire in high school is something Fairfax County Public Schools did for itself several years back, but Peninsula examples of high school job training programs abound.
Students at Denbigh High School can learn how to fly and maintain planes at the school's Aviation Academy. Canon has an apprentice program tied to schools in Newport News and Hampton.
Peninsula systems have thrown in together with the New Horizons Regional Education Center. The program began in the 1965 and now offers a range of programs to more than 1,500 high school students, in addition to adult education and training.
In January, Hampton schools announced a new partnership with Ford Next Generation Learning to put career academies in its high schools.
These sorts of programs are "exactly the kind of thing we're trying to encourage," Holton said.
"Obviously not every school is going to be teaching aviation," she said. "All kinds of resources are necessary for that. I really think we're going to see a lot of variations that are differing by locality."
Holton, as well as Miller, said schools will still teach classic subjects, such as literature. It may look different, though, with more focus on teaching students to communicate.
"We might teach more poetry because we're going to be teaching kids communication skills," Holton said.
This shift is one of several changes that state leaders have made to the Virginia's education system in recent years. Miller has pushed quite a few measures, including a decrease in the number of Standards of Learning tests. Greason and the House Republican majority developed a number reforms, and an innovation study committee created by the legislature is continuing to meet.
Greason said he hopes to turn attention next to the duties assigned Virginia teachers, and to the paperwork they face. He said current licensure regulations require expertise in anywhere between half a dozen and two dozen areas.
"I think the next couple years is about asking, 'What is the role of the teacher?'" Greason said. "That's where my head is. Others will have different views."
Greason noted that Virginia schools rank consistently in the top five nationally.
"That's great, but I'll tell you, if we stand still, we will not be in the top five 10 years from now," he said. "So what is it that we need to do?"
(c)2016 the Daily Press (Newport News, Va.)
