Meeting Essential Skills

ESSENTIAL SKILL REQUIREMENTS:

· Enrolled in Grade 9 in 2010-11 and beyond: Read and comprehend a variety of text; Write clearly and accurately; and Apply mathematics in a variety of settings.  Students are required to meet essential skill benchmarks in order to graduate. (waived through the class of 2028)

 Although meeting essential skill benchmarks do not impact graduation, our focus remainsin assisting students todevelop the skills they need to be successful in todays world.

Options for Demonstrating Proficiency in the Essential Skills Currently waived through

Students must demonstrate proficiency in the Essential Skills of reading, writing and applying mathematics. There are several options available for students.  Listed below are current test options approved by the State Board of Education for reading and math that students are given opportunity to participate in at Neah-Kah-Nie.

Reading: Smarter Balance (score of 2515 needed), ACT (score of 18 needed), WorkKeys (score of 79 needed)
TBCC's Accuplacer (score of 86 needed), SAT (score of 420/24 needed), PSAT (score of 44 needed) AP English exams (score of 3 needed), or Work Samples (Students must produce 2 reading work samples, at least one of which must be informative. (Students could have 1 informative and 1 literary work sample or 2 informative work samples.)

Writing: Smarter Balance (score of 2583 needed), ACT Writing (score of 19 needed), SAT Writing (score of 27 needed), or Work Samples (Students must complete 2 writing work samples, at least one of which must be expository or persuasive, the other may be in any of the approved modes (informative/argumentative, expository or persuasive).

Applying Math: Smarter Balance (score of 2628 needed), ACT (score of 19 needed), WorkKeys (score of 79 needed), SAT (score of 450/24.5 needed), PSAT (score of 45 needed) AP Math exams (score of 3 needed), or Work Samples (Students must complete 2 mathematics problem solving tasks, one each for any two of the required content strands – Algebra, Geometry, or Statistics)