Update on the Changes Coming to Indiana’s High School Diploma

The Indiana Department of Education (IDOE) and the Indiana State Board of Education (SBOE) are proposing significant changes to Indiana’s high school diploma for the first time since the 1980s. Pursuant to recent legislation, the IDOE/SBOE announced these changes in March 2024 and published a proposed draft rule in the Indiana Register on June 24th. In response to the 8,000 comments they received, the IDOE/SBOE announced significant revisions to their proposal on August 14. On October 8, the IDOE/SBOE published a second draft of the proposed rule. Here is a summary of the proposed revisions compared to the current Core 40 Diploma and a summary of the proposed revised diploma seals. On December 11, the State Board of Education voted to approve the new High School Diploma Rule with limited changes.

Where are we now?

The Final Rule, which has not been published yet, is reported to be very similar to the Second Draft of the Proposed Rule with a couple of exceptions. The changes made to the Enrollment Seals are as follows:

Enrollment Honors Seal

• If students take Advanced Placement (AP) courses to fulfill the requirements for this seal, then they are required to take the corresponding AP exams. (Requirement to pass the exams has been removed.)
  
• Students can take a blend of AP, IB, Cambridge and college credit courses to fulfill the requirement for this seal. (Previous draft did not explicitly permit a combination of courses.)
  
• Cambridge courses were added as advanced coursework options for this seal.
  

Enrollment Honors Plus Seal

• Students are required to complete 75 hours of work based learning (instead of 100 hours) to earn this seal. This change was made to align with pre-existing CTE requirements, which are in 75 hours increments.
  
• In addition, it was reported that:
  
• In this legislative session, the General Assembly would work to align school funding models around the diploma seals.
  
• To increase transparency and currency for students, all liberal arts dual credit courses should be pre-approved for transfer to all Indiana public universities.
  
• Any student graduating early would be required to earn an Honors or Honors Plus Seal.
  

What was in the Second Draft of the Proposed Rule?

In the second draft of the rule, the IDOE/SBOE moved away from their originally proposed two diploma tracks to settle on one diploma for all students. The proposed New Indiana Diploma will resemble the current Core 40 Diploma with a couple exceptions. The New Indiana (42 credit) Diploma has:

• 1 additional Math credit (Personal Finance)
  
• 1 additional Science, Technology & Engineering credit (Computer Science)
  
• 1 College & Career credit
  
• 1 less Social Studies credit (though much of the former Economics curriculum will be covered in Personal Finance)
  
• 1 less Physical Education credit
  
• 12 Personalized Electives instead of the 5 Directed Electives and 6 Personalized Electives

In addition to greater flexibility in Electives, students will have greater flexibility in many of the core requirements. For example, under the Core 40 Diploma math requirement, all students were required to take Algebra I, Geometry, and Algebra II. However, under the New Indiana Diploma, students will be required to take Algebra I, Personal Finance, and 4 additional math credits aligned to their personal goals.

Students also have the opportunity to earn optional two-tiered (Honors and Honors Plus) Enrollment, Employment, or Enlistment & Service diploma seals. Students may earn more than one type of seal. In public comments, IAG (and many others) expressed concerns about the loss of the Academic Honors Diploma framework. The IDOE/SBOE responded and the new optional Enrollment Honors Seal is very similar to the current Academic Honors Diploma with a couple exceptions.