Effective at the start of this school year, Westview students are required to take 10 combined credits of fine arts, foreign language, or career technical education (CTE) pathway courses for graduation. This change in graduation requirement puts Westview in compliance with California Education Code 51225.3, which was updated in 2018 when the Poway Unified School District (PUSD) adopted the California School Board Association’s recommended board policy for graduation. 

In previous years, students needed to fulfill five credits in Fine Arts and five credits in Foreign Language for graduation, which is in alignment with UC and CSU schools’ application requirements. However, now, the combined credit aims to focus a student’s study on their areas of interest. 

According to counselor Christine Cudmore, this change can be helpful for students who are not aiming to attend a four-year college after graduation. 

“It’s allowing more flexibility [for] students to take the courses they want to take while still meeting the graduation requirement,” Cudmore said. “Not everyone is four-year college-bound, and so this change encourages students to take classes they’re interested in.”

For students who do plan to attend four-year colleges, Cudmore said it’s important for students to be cognizant of the high-school credit requirements that universities have as they make their four-year plans. 

“Some schools require the five foreign language and five fine arts credits and some don’t, so that’s something students will now have to be more aware of when they’re making their four-year plans,” Cudmore said. “It used to be something counselors would follow up with students on because it was necessary for graduation, but now that’s going to change.”

Art teacher Keith Opstad said he is concerned that this change in graduation requirements could limit students’ exploration into new areas of study. 

“I think that for students to experience different classes in the arts or foreign language makes them well-rounded,” Opstad said. “I’ve had students who didn’t take their first art class until their junior year of high school and all of a sudden they take Drawing and Painting 1-2, 3-4, AP Studio Art, and become professional artists and art majors in college. If they didn’t get exposed to that, they would have a totally different career path.”

In spite of concerns that the altered graduation requirements will decrease enrollment in arts or foreign language classes, Cudmore anticipates that numbers in these classes will not drop due to the 85 elective credits students will still need to fulfill to graduate. 

Regardless, Opstad encourages students to pursue both foreign language and arts to broaden themselves as multifaceted learners. 

“High school is supposed to be a reflection of real life and it’s good to be exposed to a lot of different things, even if you aren’t the best at them, while you’re here,” Opstad said. “You can’t pick and choose because that’s not the way life is, and so students should take advantage of the opportunity to explore languages and arts while they can.”

This change is now reflected in the language on the 2024-2025 Course Request Forms (CRF), which features a combined column for Arts, Foreign Language, and CTE credits. As CRFs are rolled out, counselors will also be putting out a Canvas announcement notifying students of this change.