High school pathways could speed kids to graduation

Rep. Carol Spackman Moss, D-Salt Lake City, who took part in the committee, said that while those indicators are important and should be required for graduation, they can deflate or inflate a student's scores when grades are averaged out, giving a false representation of student performance.

Similarly, the committee recommended that teachers not be allowed to offer nonacademic extra credit opportunities. To illustrate the point, Hales relayed an experience where a student told her he would receive extra credit for bringing chips and salsa to share with his class.

"Those are the kinds of things that get in the way of parents understanding the true performance of their children," she said.

The committee also recommended that the board enact a clearer policy impeding schools from offering extracurricular activities such as team sports or cheerleading as an elective credit during the school day. Those credits, Hales said, come at the expense of other electives a student might take and pull funding away from academic offerings.

"Those team sports classes were never intended to be a key element," Hales said. "Team sports are supposed to be extracurricular."

The recommendation drew audible protest from some members of the board, but the committee's presentation continued with little discussion on the topic.

E-mail: benwood@desnews.com