A-g requirements – your questions answered

On Tuesday , February 15 at 6:30 p.m., the Sonoma Valley High School Design Team will hold a Community Forum at Adele Harrison Middle School to introduce the vision or preparing all Sonoma Valley High School students for success in college and careers. The forum will be held again in Spanish on Thursday, Feb. 17 at 6:30 p.m. at El Verano School.

For those unable to attend, The Sun sat down with Louann Carlomagno, superintendent of the Sonoma Valley Unified School District, to get some information.

The Sun: What does College and Career really mean?
 
LC: The College Board states that “Students are ‘college ready’ when they have the knowledge, skills, and behaviors to complete a college course of study successfully, without remediation.” According to the Center for Career and Technical Education, career readiness involves three major skill areas: core academic skills (particularly in reading, writing and mathematics); employability skills (such as critical thinking, problem solving and responsibility) that are essential in any career area; and technical skills (job-specific skills related to a specific career pathway).
 
The Sun: How are you defining college?
 
LC: I think that our generation thinks of college as meaning a 4-year institution but the definition is much more broad and this is a very important message to convey.  College includes all of the following:
Community/ Junior College (Associate Degrees & Certificate programs).
Apprenticeship Programs (eg. carpentry, culinary arts, machinist, mason, surveyor, etc.).
Trade & Technical Schools (eg. automotive tech, art schools, computer science, aircraft tech, etc.).
Four-year universities (eg. UC Berkeley, Sonoma State, Dominican University).

When we use the word “college” what we are talking about is any form of post-secondary education and this comes in all shapes and sizes!
 
 
The Sun: What are you doing to prepare all students to be College and Career Ready upon graduation?
 
LC: As a district we know that we simply can’t prepare students for rigorous academics beginning in 9th grade; we need to start from kindergarten (actually, pre-school) and work our way up!  We have tremendous efforts going on at all levels in terms of academic support and enrichment – much more than we have ever had in the past and this would not be possible without our community partners.  Of course we have needs throughout the district and while this is true, we are actually one of the more fortunate districts which actually still has class size reduction in grades K-2, no furlough days and we are still able to offer summer school programs for students who need additional learning time.
 
The Sun: Tell me a little more about your recommendation for changing graduation requirements.
 
LC: First, I’d like to give you a little background: The Sonoma Valley High School Design Team has been working on the concept of All Students College and Career Ready, and so they are really focused on the actual program implementation rather on any specific changes to graduation requirements.  The process of actually changing graduation requirements requires a change in Board policy.  With this in mind, I am working with all school sites to discuss new policy requirements as we know that with increasing the rigor of graduation requirements we must also be sure to have “safety nets” in place to assist students who need additional learning time and support.
 
The Sun: What are a-g requirements?
 
LC: Within the state of California, students meet eligibility for attendance at four-year universities by completing a set of requirements which include the following: a) 2 years of history /social science, b) 4 years of English, c) 3 years of math, d) 2 years of lab science e) 2 years of a foreign language, f) a year-long visual and performing arts course and g) a year-long college prep elective; a total of 15 courses.  These requirements are also known as “a-g” requirements.  
 
The Sun: Where can community members find out more information about College and Career Readiness?
 
LC: The district website, svusdca.org is a great place to start.  I think it’s best for community members to take a look at the PowerPoint presentation for the community forums. I think it may clarify questions regarding the work of the High School Design Team as well.  The team has been working together since October 2010 and they have put tremendous efforts into designing a freshman program to meet the needs of our incoming students.  I think it would also be beneficial to check out the following link: http://www.svhsvideo.com/dino which is helpful in understanding the cornerstones – basically the foundation which we use in developing new program design.