Filling out a FAFSA. Building a resume. Registering to vote. Understanding how credit card interest actually works. These are the kinds of tasks that shape a young adult’s first few years out of high school. Yet, in Washington, whether a teen leaves school with them completed and understood comes down to luck of the draw — which teacher they had, which parent had the time, which elective happened to be open.
State Superintendent Chris Reykdal has a proposal to change that. This week he proposed a solution, a year-long Senior Year Postsecondary Launch Course which would be taken by every graduating senior, timed to match whatever they’re actually facing that semester.
Check out a teen’s perspective: “Why I support mandatory financial literacy courses in schools“
“Students are graduating from the K–12 system without consistent access to the tools needed to support their independence,” Reykdal said in a wrtten statement on July 7. “Young people are taking on loans and credit card debt without knowledge of the implications. They don’t always know what to add to their resume, or how to register to vote. We can fix that.”
How the Course Would Work
Rather than creating an entirely new credit requirement, Reykdal’s plan combines the state’s existing half-credit civics course with a new half-credit in financial literacy and postsecondary readiness — for a total of 1 full credit, taught with a sense of timing. Financial aid lessons, for instance, would land in the fall, right as seniors are deep in college applications and hunting for scholarships.
By the end of the course, students would have:
- Completed their High School and Beyond Plan
- Built an actual resume
- Registered or pre-registered to vote
- Submitted at least one application — to a job, a college, or the military
- Applied for financial aid
Why Now
The proposal arrives amid a broader, sometimes contentious, review of what Washington requires students to study before graduation.
“In recent years, our state has seen a variety of proposed additions to graduation requirements, and my team and I have worked with stakeholders to understand and consider all of them,” Reykdal said in the announcement. “The Senior Year Postsecondary Launch Course is a compilation of changes that we believe will truly improve outcomes without limiting students’ flexibility to take the courses that align with their postsecondary goals.”
Reykdal brought the idea to the State Board of Education in June, as the Board works through its own overhaul of graduation requirements. The Board is aiming to land on updated requirements — ones flexible enough to fit a range of postsecondary paths — in time for lawmakers to weigh in during the 2027 legislative session.
A pushback on cutting other requirements
Reviewing graduation expectations also brings the possibility of trimming required credits in career and technical education, the arts, and health and physical education. Reykdal has pushed back on in this area, urging the Board to keep those courses intact for every student rather than scaling them back.
Alongside the Postsecondary Launch Course, he’s also asked the Board to raise expectations for senior-year quantitative reasoning coursework. Board members are expected to take up formal adoption of their draft recommendations at their August meeting.
If the Board signs off, the next step is Olympia: Reykdal plans to ask the Legislature to codify the Postsecondary Launch Course as part of any graduation-requirement changes lawmakers take up in the 2027 session.
You can gave a say in graduation requirements
The State Board of Education is opening up its draft recommendations on new high school graduation requirements for public comment, with a pair of webinars scheduled this week on Microsoft Teams. Both will cover identical ground:
- Wednesday, July 8, 6 to 7:30 p.m.
- Thursday, July 9, 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
Can’t make either slot? Register anyway. Anyone who signs up in advance will get a recording of the session afterward. Register at st.news/stateboardwebinars.
