Several educators are blaming tougher graduation requirements for issues that are plaguing the Santa Rosa City Schools district. In 2018, the district changed graduation requirements after finding that not enough students of color were graduating with the classes they needed to get into a four-year university. In the past five years, students have been required to pass college preparatory classes to graduate. This is also known as meeting A-through-G college eligibility requirements. Since then, graduation rates at nearly every high school in the district have gone down. Santa Rosa High School Counselor Kris Bertsch tells the Press Democrat fewer students are going straight to four-year colleges than before, while the graduation rate and school safety have plummeted.
Tonight, the Santa Rosa City Schools district is hosting a progress meeting on A-through-G graduation requirements, which many educators say have failed students. The meeting will be held inside the Santa Rosa High School Auditorium at 5:30 p.m. District officials may consider offering waivers to certain students so they can graduate in 2024 without meeting A-through-G requirements. This would be the fourth straight year the district has offered the waivers, with plans to also offer them to students in 2025.