Under the current regulations associated with the Keystone Exams, there is not an alternative diploma option. Students will have to pass either the Keystone Exams and/or a series of alternative project-based performance assessments. This project-based performance assessment will be created by the Commonwealth for students to demonstrate proficiency in those areas that are failed on the Keystone Exams.

Some students in the high school will begin taking Keystone Exam field tests next week. The field tests will be given in Algebra I, biology and literature. The data gained from the field tests will be used to help the Pennsylvania Department of Education develop future Keystone Exams and cut scores for future operational tests.

Keystone Exam Options

The State Board of Education approved options for the use of Keystone Exams that would allow school districts to use them without the exam scores counting as 1/3 of the course grade. School districts that choose to use the Keystone Exams alone as the graduation requirement and independent of course grades would not have to go through a local assessment validation process. Under this new flexibility, school districts have the option to separate the exams from the course grades.

Keystone Exams

Beginning with this year’s eighth grade class, students must pass a series of exams, called the Keystone Exams, to earn a Pennsylvania high school diploma. Pennsylvania has joined the growing number of states requiring that students pass subject-specific exams in order to graduate. The exams will be phased in over the next few years but once all of the exams have been developed, students will be responsible for passing six of the exams in order to graduate and receive a public high school diploma. This year’s seventh and eighth grade students will be required to pass four exams in order to graduate. Eventually, all students will have to pass two math exams, two language arts exams, one social studies exam and one science exam. These exams will serve as the course final exam in the subjects they are associated with. Students will take the exams beginning in eighth grade and will have additional opportunities to re-take the sections of the exams that they do not pass. If students cannot pass specific sections of the exams, they may be eligible to complete a project-based assessment demonstrating their proficiency in the content area of the sections that they could not pass. The district will be revising our high school courses over the next few years to ensure that the content assessed in the Keystone Exams is the content taught in the courses. The specific courses that will be aligned to Keystone Exam content will be: Algebra I, Geometry, Algebra II, English 11, English 12, American History, World History, Biology and Chemistry.