By LAURA HAMMACK, guest columnist

Several weeks ago, the Indiana General Assembly ended their regular session with some unfinished business. A special session has been called by the governor to address bills for which resolution was never achieved. Nonetheless, significant action was taken during the regular session that will impact education policies across the state of Indiana.

This is the first of two columns covering some of the key actions that took place this session that will have an impact on education matters in Brown County Schools.

Readers of this column will remember that one of the bills that was very important to school districts across the state was HB 1001. This bill was signed by the governor in March and requires the state budget agency to transfer the amount necessary to cover the K-12 state tuition shortfall that occurred, because the state underestimated the number of students who would be attending public schools. We were warned that if the bill didn’t pass, funding would be cut to accommodate for the shortfall. Thankfully, HB 1001 passed and our current funding hasn’t been affected.

Another topic that has been previously covered in this column are the various Indiana high school diploma options and the unintended negative impact of these options on graduation rates. Indiana currently has four diploma options; however, the Every Student Succeeds Act indicated that only the diploma issued to the preponderance of students would be counted in the district graduation rate.

HB 1426 addresses this issue by requiring the State Board of Education to establish one standard Indiana diploma for students who successfully complete high school graduation requirements. The law stipulates that the Indiana Diploma will include one of the following designations: 1) general designation, 2) Core 40 designation, 3) Core 40 with academic honors designation, 4) Core 40 with technical honors designation. The state board also is tasked with creating an alternate diploma for students with significant cognitive disabilities. Currently, students with this eligibility receive a certificate of completion.

If you are scratching your heads and thinking, “Wait, Indiana already has the four designations in place that are indicated, so what’s new here?” You are right. The issue is primarily semantics. Currently, the state of Indiana has four diploma options where only one option calculates graduation rate. The new legislation establishes one Indiana diploma with four “designations” where each designation can be calculated for graduation rate. The difference appears unimportant, but the impact is substantial. We are very pleased to see this action.

Another action in HB 1426 requires the State Board of Education to consider course requirements for math and science for the Core 40 curriculum sequences. Specifically, it is indicated that math course requirements other than Algebra II should be analyzed for implementation. This is encouraging. Many times, Algebra II is the course that prevents a student from attaining a Core 40 diploma when they have every other course successfully completed. We are hopeful that the state board will consider alternate applied mathematics courses focused on thinking and problem solving that assist students in the 21st century workforce.

HB 1426 also addressed the very confusing territory of assessment at the high school level. First, it was decided that the current graduation examination will be administered until the 2019-20 school year. Whereas the students in Grades 3 to 8 are shifting to the new ILEARN assessment in 2018-19, BCHS students will still take the current graduation examination. The bill indicates that after June 30, 2021, the statewide assessment will be a nationally recognized college entrance exam. As you can see, we still have a lot more to learn about the future of graduation examination requirements at the high school level.

We appreciate the work of our General Assembly as they endeavored to address issues related to education matters. My next column will continue to explore additional bills that have been signed by the governor and have direct application to our schools.

Laura Hammack is superintendent of Brown County Schools. She can be reached at 812-988-6601 or [email protected].