School boards consider benefits of assigning senior projects
By Stacey Hollenback
Kayla Mahalchak’s school project was not a model of the solar system. In fact, the high school senior from Chartiers Valley High School in Pennsylvania didn’t use any papier-mâché at all.
To satisfy her state’s senior project requirement for graduation, Mahalchak traveled to Africa and observed medical practices in Zimbabwe.
“I’m interested in being a doctor when I’m older, and I wanted to get my feet wet and to make sure that’s what I wanted to do,” says the 17-year-old. “It broke my heart to see what they were dealing with, but they were so resourceful. It just touched me.”
Mahalchak had been dreading her culminating project -- which also requires 30 hours of community service, a job-shadow, a paper, and a presentation -- since the beginning of high school.
As she wrapped up the final stages of her project, Mahalchak said the experience has been challenging and enriching. “I learned where my passion’s at: helping people,” she says. “I know this is the course I want to be on and that I’m heading in the right direction.”
A growing number of states across the country are requiring students to complete senior projects. But although the concept is often readily embraced by policymakers, implementation has been a challenge in some districts.
Four states have made culminating projects a graduation requirement, the Education Commission of the States reports.
Pennsylvania has required seniors to carry out a culminating project since 1993, says Jim Buckheit, executive director of the state’s board of education. As long as the project fits state requirements, districts can decide how to implement the mandate.
In Washington state, the requirement takes effect for seniors graduating this year. But North Carolina’s senior project mandate takes effect in 2010. Students in the District of Columbia must complete a senior project in 2011, and Idaho students must do so in 2013.
Other states allow districts to impose projects as a graduation requirement or offer it as an option for students trying to demonstrate proficiency.
When a mandate is “instituted in the spirit in which it was established, it can be a powerful way of capstoning a student’s education,” Buckheit says. “In many cases, students really wowed teachers and administrators with some of the work they did.”
Mahalchak is not the only student at her school who made the most of the senior project experience. One of her peers, for example, hosted an art show to raise money for a children’s hospital. Another sponsored a dance to raise money for pancreatic cancer research.
For students, senior projects are another means, other than high test scores and grades, of demonstrating their knowledge and beefing up their college applications. But to some students, parents, and school officials, they can be too much of a burden.
Last September Washington, D.C.’s schools chancellor, Michelle Rhee, told students at School Without Walls Senior High School that they did not have to fulfill the senior project requirement to graduate.
Parents had complained that the project, initiated by the school’s principal, would interfere with students’ already hectic schedules.
Other districts have faced similar complaints that culminating projects, which can require a research paper, a visual element, a presentation, and hours of service, are too demanding. But watering down the requirement can also lead to criticism.
In January, board members of the North Hill school district in Pennsylvania voted to replace a required three-part senior project with a minimum requirement of a one-page essay.
In the past, students, individually or in a group, were required to propose a topic, spend the next three years producing a written report and various physical components, and give a presentation. Students were assigned advisers to track their progress.
North Hills school board President Jeff Meyer says a lot of projects were not related to their schoolwork.
“It was clear to me this project was additional busy work that provided little or no value to the overwhelming majority of students,” says Mayer, who spoke to graduates about their experiences before voting in favor of the change.
Board member Arlene Bender disagreed. “People were in an uproar,” she says. “Our superintendent did not recommend this. Our teachers were beside themselves. They’ve all asked that we put it back.”
In a written statement, the president of the North Hills Education Association said the new requirement put North Hills on a path to mediocrity, encouraged minimalism, and eliminated a source of pride for the district.
Although volunteering was an optional aspect of the project, Bender says 42 percent of North Hill Senior High students did volunteer work to satisfy the requirement this year. “It’s amazing what these kids can do if you set the bar high,” says Bender. “If you set the bar low, they’re going to take the easy way out. It’s human nature.”
Maryland’s state education officials were accused of setting the bar too low in October when they approved a plan from state Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick to allow senior projects as an alternative graduation requirement for students who cannot pass the state’s mandated exit exam.
Previously, the state required students, beginning with the class of 2009, to pass a series of high school assessments in order to receive a diploma.
Although the Maryland education department says the project would be “rigorous,” some school leaders in the state say failing students now have a convenient loophole.
Kayla Mahalchak understands why students may find their projects are too challenging, but says she is grateful to have an opportunity to participate in something that will have a lasting influence on her life.
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