Wichita Public Schools is expanding its credit recovery options for high school students struggling to earn enough credits to graduate.
Learning centers will be available for ninth- through 12th-grade students at each of the district’s comprehensive high schools in the fall. High school students will be able to use the centers to make up credits by taking a credit recovery course instead of an elective.
Credit recovery issometimes criticizedas a way to boost graduation rates without providing students with adequate skills. Wichita Public Schools lags behind the Kansas graduation rate and raising the rate is one of the district’s goals.
Assistant superintendent Gil Alvarez said the district isn’t just trying to improve graduation rates with credit recovery, but aiming to make students college and career ready.
“We want them to have college and career ready skills so they can make decisions on what they want to do after high school so they can be successful and be a productive citizen,” Alvarez said.
The district is also increasing online credit recovery options.
Stephan Bisaha, based at KMUW in Wichita, is an education reporter for the Kansas News Service, a collaboration of KMUW, Kansas Public Radio, KCUR and High Plains Public Radio covering health, education and politics. Follow him on Twitter @SteveBisaha. Kansas News Service stories and photos may be republished at no cost with proper attribution and a link back to the original post. To contact KMUW News or to send in a news tip, reach us at news@kmuw.org.