New Credits Required for 25-26 School Year

At the latest board meeting, the Howard County Board of Education decided to implement a few additional credits for all seniors to graduate high school. The new credits in physical education and health will be required for all students starting in the 2025-26 school year. This means that any student enrolled in HCPSS would have to complete an additional credit in both physical education and health to achieve the graduation requirements. 

In recent years, we have seen the addition of Health II and the extra year of math for the 2021-2022 freshmen. The Howard County Board of Education came out with this news on April 1st explaining in an HCPSS release that they had felt the need for “students to prioritize fitness” and to “expand their knowledge of health education.” Many OM students have mixed feelings on the matter, some are dissatisfied and others are indifferent towards it. 

OM sophomore Kailey Williams stated, “It’s dumb, I don’t know why they had to add more unnecessary classes that we will not need in the future.” OM senior Shawn Johnson felt differently saying, “I don’t care, I’m a senior so, either way, it won’t affect me.” 

The student response varied based on grade level from what I saw interviewing students. OM teachers also had thoughts on the matter, and many don’t feel that it will help overall student success. Many teachers expressed that the additional credit requirements will be an extra workload on both staff and students, and it may be difficult to staff the new courses.

This is the outcome of the new superintendent Bill Darnes. He has stated that he wants to broaden the learning horizon for the upcoming school year to better the education of the next generation of students. He plans to add more real-world learning to his plan and he feels adding an extra credit of health and PE is the way to do that. 

Overall, students and staff are not particularly excited about carrying on the extra workload of more classes. With every class requirement, students lose elective options to pursue courses of student interest. This may also affect seniors who were planning on taking a light schedule during their final year of high school.

Happy April Fool's Day!🦂