School Board Approves Policy on Summer Course Work

The La Cañada Unified School District Governing Board held the second reading on a board policy regarding transcript credit for summer course work during Tuesday night’s meeting and approved the amended policy.

The policy states that the Governing Board, along with recommendation from the Superintendent, can establish the minimum standards of academic proficiency and graduation requirements at La Cañada High School (LCHS). The summer courses addressed in the policy can be used for acceleration, credit recovery, or enrichment purposes. It also provides students and families the option to complete requirements with alternative means.

“This is a very good attempt to find common ground and a common solution to address concerns,” said Joel Peterson, a member of the Governing Board who first requested the policy be added to the agenda, at the last LCUSD Governing Board meeting.

One issue raised at the meeting was how to balance the integrity of the LCHS diploma along with the alternative summer school options for students.

“We want to vouch of the integrity of what [the LCHS diploma] is worth,” said Ellen Multari, Vice President of the Governing Board.

Parents attending the meeting provided feedback on the proposed policy.

“I’m really grateful that we have this option in La Cañada. It fixes the problem, the uncertainty of what will happen next summer for our kids,” said Belinda Randolph, the mother of two sons, at a previous LCUSD Governing Board meeting.

The policy on summer course work addresses classes that are taken online or at another brick and mortar campus. The courses taken for acceleration will be included for transcript credit on LCUSD’s transcript, but there is a limit of 10 summer school credits per summer before the beginning of the regular school year between grades nine through twelve; this amounts to a total of four courses maximum and a maximum of 40 summer school credits can be applied to meet graduation requirements. On the other hand, there is no limit to the number of outside agency summer school courses taken for credit recovery or remediation. An amendment to the policy also stated that elective classes that are not University of California or California State University-certified remain eligible for summer school credit.

The board policy on summer course work has been addressed in previous Governing Board meetings. Last January, the La Cañada Unified School District voted to not set a minimum standard of instruction minutes for summer school. The decision allowed credits from Hillside School and Learning Center to be used towards graduation.