A hunt for almost-grads

Good news for people in their 20s, 30s, and 40s who left North Carolina high schools without a diploma: You may be eligible now.

Bad news for school districts: You may have to dig through boxes of dusty files to verify that a 46-year-old can get his sheepskin.

New state standards say students no longer have to pass high school competency exams and a computer skills test to get a diploma. Lawmakers adopted the changes this year to reduce standardized tests that students must take.

But there is confusion about whether the new standard applies to former students.

State education officials say it does, and local school boards face looking back to 1981, when the competency test was first required, to find people who could qualify. In other words, if the only reason a student didn't graduate was failure to pass competency tests, education officials say he or she should now receive a diploma.

They have no idea how many people might suddenly be eligible for high school diplomas, but they say it could be critical for those who are.

"Of all the things that we do in high school, that document is the most important to students in getting jobs," said June Atkinson, the state superintendent of public instruction.

State legislators say they never intended for the new standards to be applied retroactively. Local school board members say they don't see the sense in it.

"It sounds crazy," said Wake County school board member Ron Margiotta.

Meanwhile, local school districts are scrambling to figure out what to do.

Some districts are further along than others in getting diplomas to former students. Durham schools are waiting for former students to come to them. Johnston County schools found two eligible former students in an initial search and will take a second look for more.

Several departments in Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools are working on the question, and the district should have an update on its plans next week.

Looking for records

Stephanie Knott, spokeswoman for Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools, said the district hasn't figured out how it will get word to former students or, in some cases, how it will determine who qualifies.

"Not all records are in one place," Knott said. "Some are not computerized."

The Winston-Salem/Forsyth district, which is spreading the word on the policy change, has already made graduates of some former students.

"I've had at least one parent who was elated that the child was able to get the diploma," said Kenneth Simington, the assistant superintendent for student services for the Winston-Salem/Forsyth school system.

The policy can create confusion and frustration. One former student who did not have enough credits to graduate asked about getting a diploma, Simington said.

The state recently required local districts to change their computer systems, which will make it hard to go back more than five years to verify students' claims, he said.

The state Department of Public Instruction doesn't have an estimate on how many former students might be eligible for diplomas.

Key legislators say they had not heard that education officials were telling districts to change diploma requirements for former students.

"I'm very surprised," said Rep. Tricia Cotham, a Charlotte-area Democrat and a vice chairwoman of the House Education Committee. "This is not retroactive, nor was it intended to be."

Legislators said their decision to eliminate some standardized tests was meant for only current and future students.

Not what they meant

Lawmakers eliminated the competency tests because students now take so many other standardized tests, including end-of-course exams, said Rep. Rick Glazier, a Fayetteville Democrat who helped write the education budget. The state didn't have end-of-course tests in the 1980s, and the competency tests were established as minimum standards, he said.

"I think this is a fundamental misread by the state board," Glazier said. "I don't think there's anything in the legislation that mandates this interpretation."

Bill Harrison, chairman of the state school board, said former students, no matter how long they have been out of school, can come back at any time to try and pass competency exams to get their diploma. Since the competency tests no longer exist, lawyers advised offering diplomas to anyone whose only shortfall was failing the tests , Harrison said.

The policy wasn't meant to have schools sorting through their records, he said, but to let people know of the opportunity. The board may try to straighten out confusion at its meeting next week.

With all the talk about raising standards, the notion of offering diplomas to former students who couldn't show they could read and write at an eighth-grade level doesn't make sense to Kaye McGarry, vice chairwoman of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school system.

"I thought we were trying to raise the bar," she said.