Changes in Graduation Requirements

There are two changes in graduation requirements that were approved by the board recently. They both will take effect with the Class of 2012 (this year's freshmen class).

1. Students will now be required to take 4 units of science as a graduation requirement. Each yearlong class is 1 unit and semester classes are 0.5 units, and our current requirements is 3 units of science. This increase of 1 unit was made primarily because the University System of Georgia will begin requiring 4 units of science for admission. Additionally, this will not be a major change for our students because most of them exceed our current requirement anyway. 64% of our current seniors will be graduating with at least 4 units and 79% of our current seniors will be graduating with at least 3.5 units.

2. The total number of required graduation credits is being increased from 21.5 units to 23 units. This change adjusts our number of credits with our 7-period schedule that has been in place for the past several years. As a basis for comparison, a student could potentially earn 28 credits over the course of 4 years.