The Rhode Island Diploma System & Graduation Requirements
Preparing all students for success in college, careers, and life
Reimagining the High School Experience!
We've learned many lessons since March 2020 and made pandemic promises to ourselves on how we want to improve ourselves, our lives, our communities, and our schools. At RIDE, we've committed ourselves to reimagining the high school experience and ensuring our students graduate with open doors to their futures.
What do we want for our young people? It’s a powerful question that has driven ride’s work to reimagine high school over the last two years.
We know our young people are eager for change. They want to be inspired. They want to see the real world reflected back to them in their learning. They want to know their education is relevant and will prepare them for the lives they envision - college, career, or otherwise.
We have approached the work to reimagine high school and align postsecondary regulations with an unflinching belief in our young people, parents, and educators.
We have built recommendations with them.
2021 Reimagining High School Working Group
ride hosted a series of Reimagining High School working group meetings from June -November 2021 to help RIDE learn how to reimagine the high school experience and graduation requirements to better meet the needs of all of our students. These meetings were hosted through Zoom and are open to all members of the public. During these meetings, students, families, and educators from across the state shared and engaged with relevant data and experiences from our schools on how to improve the high school experience. Meeting attendees shared feedback, participated in breakout groups, and generated ideas that shaped RIDE’s recommendations to the K-12 Council.
In December 2021, we presented proposed recommendations to the K-12 Council on Education. Specifically, the proposal included three key priorities that are aligned to concrete, actionable steps to realize all that we want for our young people.
Executive Summary of Proposal (English/español)
Proposal
Proposal FAQs (English/español)
Record Number of Public Comments Received for RIDE's Readiness-Based Graduation Requirements
After making revisions to the proposal based on the feedback from the K-12 Council, RIDE was required to hold a 30-day public comment period with a minimum of two public hearings. RIDE instead held a nine-week public comment period, (March 7-May 10), and held a total of seven public hearings, with at least one hearing in each county, as well as four town halls to create space for additional dialogue about the proposed revisions. RIDE also accepted comments in writing via email.
RIDE is proud to announce that, with over 400 unique comments, we surpassed our ambitious goal of seeing the Reimagining High School Initiative become the most-commented upon set of education regulations in the history of the state.
Where We Are Now: Spring 2022
RIDE is now in the process of compiling the 400+ comments received and will be using them to shape and refine the proposal before it is presented to the K-12 Council for a final vote of approval this summer.
The proposal is still a work in progress, and RIDE will continue to share frequent updates on this phase of the process on their website, in field memos, and through direct outreach to stakeholders. During this phase of the process, they will be carefully processing the comments shared by the public and using them to create a proposal that is right for RI students, families, and schools.