PEABODY — All students in the 2025 graduating class, along with around 70 students from 2003 to 2024 who meet local requirements, will be given diplomas after November’s election decided to no longer make MCAS a graduation requirement.
In lieu of the MCAS, school districts can now instead satisfy the “competency determination” requirement for graduation by students “satisfactorily completing coursework that has been satisfied by the student’s district,” according to state law.
For Peabody Public Schools, this includes four years of English, three years of social studies with U.S. History I or II, three years of mathematics and two years of science.
Identical conditions were set out by the state in 2020 when the COVID pandemic forced the cancellation of exams and Peabody’s coursework was identified as satisfying the competency determination requirement for graduation.
“We believe that all Peabody Public School students who complete the local graduation requirements will have completed coursework that is aligned with the Massachusetts curriculum frameworks,” Superintendent Dr. Josh Vadala said.
Director of Guidance Robert Quist also outlined how the district was able to find former students from the 20-year time span who will now be eligible for diplomas, an action that was mandated by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE).
In order to make it known that there are former Peabody students who can now get a diploma, committee member Joseph Amico motioned to utilize all connections at the committee’s disposal to make this information known. The motion passed unanimously.
For future classes, DESE will be sending out information regarding graduating students and they have indicated that a long term set of graduation requirements will be formulated with the state legislature, according to Quist.
What happens for the current graduating class has been put entirely in the hands of each individual district.
A number of students graduating this year have taken a retest or were scheduled to retest the MCAS in February, something they will no longer need to do in order to receive a diploma.
But Dr. Vadala reiterated that MCAS is still something that is required by the state to be administered to all students, it’s just not needed for graduation.
The next step for the school committee is pinning down the exact language for how they will determine competency and passing policy that makes Peabody coursework the standard for getting a diploma from the district.
“Our curriculum does meet all the criteria, and we have the power to say, ‘We support our curriculum and we support the students who followed through and completed it,’” committee member Beverley Griffin Dunne said. “That in itself is really a great step forward to give people some assurance that they will be able to get a diploma.”
