As the class of 2008 enters Oak Harbor High School next week, students will have to meet more requirements before they graduate in four years.

Before donning their caps and gowns, the students will have completed a final project and developed a plan outlining their first year out of high school.

Perhaps one of the more notable changes will be requiring students pass all components of the Washington Assessment of Student Learning, also known as the WASL.

“This is something that we should have been doing all along,” said Dwight Lundstrom, principal at Oak Harbor High School, of the new graduation requirements. “This is forcing our hands to put pressure on kids and families to be successful.”

Because of these new requirements, the Oak Harbor School District is working to help students meet the challenges. To help students pass the WASL, the high school is developing student learning plans for incoming freshman who didn’t pass the test during their seventh-grade year.

Charisse Berner, curriculum director for the Oak Harbor School District, said the plans will develop a way for students to improve in subject they failed when they took the WASL.

She added the learning plans will be catered to each student, depending on their performance on the standardized test.

When the Oak Harbor freshman class last took the WASL as seventh graders, 312 students failed the math test, 146 students failed the writing test and 232 student failed the reading test.

Of that number, 83 students failed all portions of the WASL and aren’t considered special education students.

She added those student will need significant help to get past the WASL next year as sophomores.

Starting with the freshman this year, the student learning plans will be implemented at lower grades in subsequent years, Berner said.

The Legislature made it a requirement that all students pass the WASL in order to graduate. Should students not pass the test in their sophomore year, they will have four other opportunities to retake all or part of the test, according to information from the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction.

In addition to the test, the freshman will also have to develop a “culminating” project that highlights what they’ve learned through their four years of high school.

Students will have to develop a portfolio that will be the basis of their project.

“It’s an opportunity for (students) to share and reflect on what they’ve learned in high school,” Berner said.

Lundstrom said the portfolio is broken up into four parts and shows what they’ve learned through high school and how ready they are to enter the world.

The four components include a planning segment where students develop a career plan, a citizen segment highlighting any community service, a learning aspect showing their academic career and an employment aspect which highlights any practical experience a student may have.

The students will learn about the portfolio and senior project when they take an oral communication course. In the first semester of their senior year, the students will give a trial presentation of their project.

Lundstrom said that initial attempt will show whether they are ready to give a successful presentation in their senior year. That provides students a chance to fine-tune their project before their last semester of high school.

The students will have to present their project in front of a panel at the end of their senior year.

Berner said the officials looked at schools such as Burlington-Edison High School that already have a senior project as a graduation requirement.

To help families understand the changes in graduation requirements, school officials met with incoming freshman and their parents to discuss the district’s graduation requirements.

Similar meetings are expected with next year’s freshman class.

You can reach News-Times reporter Nathan Whalen at nwhalen@whidbeynewstimes.com or call 675-6611.