A bill heard by the House Elementary and Secondary Education committee would require any Missouri public school student in their final year of high school to take two full semesters of a math and science courses before heading off to college.

Missouri’s public high school students may be looking at attending college right after they graduate, but some may not. Either way, a bill introduced by State Representative Dave Hinson (R-St. Clair) would require students in their senior year to take two full semesters of math and two full semesters of science as a way to try to make Missouri students become better prepared for the rigor of college coursework.

“Right now, it’s being noticed that we’re getting several high school seniors are more or less taking their senior year off of high school,” he says. “Because they have already met other requirements so they’re taking easy classes and they’re really not preparing themselves for college.”

However, there are some students who are exempt from the math and science requirement. He says any student that has an Individual Educational Plan (IEP) would be exempt or if a student expresses interest in attending a vocational type college.

There are exceptions though. If a student finds that they are in a transition and decide during their junior year that they do want to attend college after high school, they’ll have to change their plans and enter into a math or science course their senior year.

Hinson says colleges and universities throughout the state are seeing high school graduates needing to take remedial courses when they enter college rather than college-level courses due to the lapse of time the students have gone without taking a math or science course their senior year of high school.

 

 

AUDIO: Mary Farucci reports. (1:00)