House Education Committee hears proposal to keep 46-credit minimum, add 1-credit digital literacy requirement

BOISE — The House Education Committee reviewed proposed updates to statewide high school graduation rules Wednesday, including a new one-credit digital literacy requirement, expanded credit flexibility to apply work-based and CTE learning to core credits, and a redesign of the senior project into a "future readiness" project that would take effect for the Class of 2028.

Greg Wilson, chief of staff at the State Department of Education, told the committee the state "requires an overall 46 credits. That's the state minimum requirement, and that's 29 core academic requirements and 17 elective requirements." He said the department's draft changes aim to preserve that 46-credit total while modernizing what counts as core coursework.

"Our workforce, our student, our parent needs have changed dramatically in the last 10 or 15 years, and so we wanted graduation requirements that reflected what we expect students to know and do in 2025 and beyond," Wilson said. The department's four headline recommendations are: greater flexibility for meeting core academic requirements, making digital literacy a core academic requirement, creating localized pathways districts must publish, and replacing the existing senior project with a future readiness project.

On communications and language arts, the draft rules remove a standalone one-credit communications requirement and instead direct districts to integrate communications concepts and skills across courses or continue to offer standalone speech as an elective. Wilson said the change reflects that "there were no standalone standards for communications" and that many districts already deliver speech…