by Mackenzie Armstead | staff writer

This year’s freshmen will be the second class to follow an endorsement path as a result of House Bill 5. With graduation requirements that follow an interest track, students, along with their counselors, are mapping out their high school careers in advance by completing an IGP. 

“The IGP stands for Interactive Graduation Plan and it’s something that Northeast planned, and it’s basically a four year plan. And it affects all of our students that are on the foundation graduation plan, which are our current 10th and 9th graders,” lead counselor Courtney Tarbox said.

A district pilot program, students and parents can find more information about the IGPs online. During the spring semester of last year, the freshman class met with their counselors in order to learn more about the new program and establish their own individualized plan.

“It was just designed last spring, so last April is when we met with all the students that are current tenth graders…[the] counselors met with those students in the computer lab to help them establish and create their IGP,” Tarbox said.

A student’s IGP Plan is based on their chosen endorsement. These endorsements could include mathematics, English, medical studies, military, law enforcement, and more. After choosing an endorsement, a student will then be able to map out what they are possibly interested in pursuing after high school.

“An endorsement is a pathway, so let’s say if you were very interested in the medical field, you can do health science endorsement. So you can take classes that are geared towards your endorsement so that you know, if you really like that…when you get to college you are going to have to make that choice,” assistant principal Julie Shore says.

Students are now able to access their own IGP whenever they want, since it’s an online document. This feature may be beneficial to some students because it enables them to change their plan if they wanted to pursue a different subject.

“The nice thing about the IGP is that it is a fluid document that’s kept on the student’s account on the parent portal…that’s where they find their IGP,” Tarbox said.

This new graduation plan may also help students stay on top of the electives and various courses that are required for their specific endorsement, in order to meet the minimum graduation requirements by the end of their senior year.

“The other super important feature of this program is that it ensures that, when a student selects their endorsement, which is their area of focus for their electives, it ensures planning for all the electives they need to take,” Tarbox said.