Peabody Schools Look To Issue Diplomas To Students Who Failed MCAS

PEABODY, MA — The Peabody Public Schools District is looking to locate students who may have passed district graduation requirements over the past two decades — but did not receive a high school diploma because they did not pass the state MCAS exam — and issue them diplomas retroactively after voters struck down the MCAS statewide graduation requirement in this past fall's election.

Superintendent Josh Vadala on Tuesday night issued proposed revised graduation requirements for this year's senior class — which do not include passing the MCAS — as well as the proposal for issuing the diplomas retroactively, in accordance with new state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education guidelines.

Vadala said about 70 students were identified as those who would have been able to graduate with a diploma if not for the now-stricken MCAS requirement.

"Anybody from the Class of 2003 through the Class of 2024 who met our local graduation requirements but did not pass MCAS, we can review their transcripts and we can issue them a diploma this spring," Vadala told the School Committee. "We will be allowed to do that under this new law. What we'd like to do is develop a policy that recognizes the local graduation requirements as meeting the competency determination to issue a high school diploma."

He said the proposal should lead to a "rich discussion" in School Committee subcommittees but the majority of the Committee seemed on board with the new guidelines that would require students to take and pass four years of English, three years of social studies (including at least one year of U.S. history), three years of math and two years of science to graduate.

"I wanted to bring it forth now because we're getting phone calls from students from the past, and in recent years, who would like a high school diploma because they met the local graduation requirements," Vadala said.

Officials said students who met those requirements within the last year or two, but did not pass MCAS and had been rescheduled to take it again, have been advised that is no longer necessary for graduation.

School Committee member Joseph Amico made a motion, which was accepted unanimously, to develop an outreach program to identify and locate students who may be eligible for a diploma but never received it to let them know that is now an option.

Vadala said the new district requirements are based on the longstanding ones in place that had been superseded by the state MCAS requirement for the past 20 years. He said those were the requirements that were also used in 2020 when MCAS requirements were suspended because of the COVID-19 health crisis school disruptions.

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. X/Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)