To graduate from high school, a Kino student must earn twenty credits, with each credit representing a year-long substantial class or project.
High school students are encouraged to work towards goals that are meaningful to them, just like younger students. But the focus now is on tailoring one’s curriculum to what one plans to do after graduation. In most cases, this involves college.
A student who is planning to go to college will want to take classes or work on projects that follow the general guidelines that most colleges require or recommend: four years of English, three years of math, three years of a lab science, two years of a foreign language, and so on. Kino teachers will help students who have a particular interest research the specific admissions requirements for the colleges they may want to apply to. Students who aren’t sure of their future plans are encouraged to follow the general guidelines in order to keep their options open.
Within those requirements, however, a Kino student will often have a myriad of choices. To earn an English credit, for example, student may take a literature class, which might focus on a particular genre or author, or a writing class, which may be creative writing, essay writing, or journalism. A student can work one on one with a teacher, follow his or her own reading list, work on an extended writing project, produce his or her own newspaper or magazine. A student who has an absorbing interest in a subject can get English credit by researching and writing an extended paper about it. (Math and foreign languages don’t have this flexibility as they generally require a more structured learning.)
In addition to these academic requirements, high school students:
- are expected to be increasingly responsible members of the community and be role models for our younger students;
- are required to write self-evaluations for every class and project, so that each one becomes a part of the process of learning how to learn;
- are required to complete thirty hours of community service every year;
- are required to complete a senior project, a year long project involving something they are passionate about. Here are some examples of past senior projects.
When Kino students apply to colleges, they are not only able to provide a transcript that shows that they have taken the recommended classes, but they can also demonstrate that they are the kinds of students that colleges look for: they are self-directed critical thinkers who are valuable, constructive members of their community. You can see a list of colleges that have accepted Kino students here.
