This upcoming school year, House Bill 5 will impact incoming freshmen’s schedules. The change will allow them to take more classes that are focused on career training. Head counselor Sandra Godwin expects House Bill 5 to be a successful way to get students to begin thinking about their future.

     “The [current graduation plan] is still really similar to what we have in that [House Bill 5] still requires students to have a total of 26 credits,” Godwin said. “The difference is in your social studies area. [And] health and speech have been removed and it adds those to the electives.”

     Current students are still required to meet health and speech requirements in order to graduate. Incoming freshmen will have the biggest change in the social studies department.

     “They are allowed to take either world history or world geography [as a freshman].” Godwin said. “[However], we are still recommending that they go with world geography first before the world history.”

     In addition, the College Board has combined AP physics with honors physics which will affect current students.

     “So a student who is either MST or honors will take their honors biology, their honors chemistry and instead of what we would normally put them in, honors physics, they go to AP at this point,” Godwin said.

     Another significant change is that incoming students will be required to select an endorsement. Students can select from a STEM endorsement (Science, Technology, Engineering, or Mathematics), business and industry endorsement, arts and humanities endorsement, public services endorsement or a multidisciplinary endorsement.

     “An endorsement is a way for them to get electives in one area,” Godwin said. “It’s like organizing the electives to the career path.”

    A multidisciplinary endorsement will allow those students who choose random electives to obey with the requirement. According to Godwin, she expects that the majority of students will be on the multidisciplinary endorsement. However, she does not expect it to be a big shift since there are current students that are practicing through the HST program or MST.

     “In the beginning students will have a hard time staying within an endorsement area,” Godwin said. “I think we will have a lot of students that are multidisciplinary, but with our MST program, we have a lot of students that are already fulfilling that endorsement.”

     According to Godwin, college students are likely to change their career path and therefore spend more money in college. Therefore, allowing students to take many different high school classes could potentially help them save money.

     “I do think it’s a good idea, but I know students will change their minds because that’s just the nature of human beings,” Godwin said. “And I think part of House Bill 5 is trying to gear people to try to test out the waters before they spend their money at college.”

Scanned handout provided by head counselor Sandra Godwin