One positive impact of the recent COVID pandemic on education in DC and elsewhere has been a willingness, born of necessity, to reconsider, reform, and disrupt traditional notions of how schools should operate. The DC Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE), which has oversight of both DC Public Schools (DCPS) and DC public charter schools, has launched their Reimagining High School Graduation Requirements Initiative. One of the prime considerations in this effort is to design a high school experience that will better prepare young people for success in life after graduation, whatever path students choose to follow. Globalize DC is engaging with this process and strongly encouraging others in our network to do so as well. This is a rare and critical opportunity to significantly elevate our city’s approach to global education and language learning.
DC-wide Graduate Profile
As a first step in the process, OSSE solicited broad public input to create a DC-wide Graduate Profile to identify the academic, personal, and interpersonal characteristics and competencies that all high school students should master by the time they graduate from a DC public high school. Globalize DC submitted ideas, offered testimony to the State Board of Education (which has responsibility for approving OSSE’s plans), and engaged in multiple discussions with the OSSE leadership. We are pleased to see some of our suggests incorporated in the current version of the Graduate Profile:
Here’s the completed Graduate Profile (as of January 2025).
Here’s the Graduate Profile-Redline Version, reflecting the explicit incorporation of global and cultural competencies.
New High School Graduation Requirements
At the beginning of 2025, guided by this new Graduate Profile, OSSE is fully engaged in the work of drafting Reimagining HS Graduation Requirements. So far we are focused on three elements:
- Competency-based credit for world languages
- Social studies standards
- Access to for-credit courses and other out-of-school global education and world language learning opportunities
We will use this page to report on the progress of this initiative.
If you are interested in participating or learning more about this initiative, email sally@globalizedc.org.