The Boundary Country School District board of trustees voted to maintain the current graduation requirements for high school seniors during a meeting on Monday, Oct. 10. The decision came after some debate, as the board members first introduced a policy that would lower those requirements.

If passed, policy 2700P would have lowered the graduation requirements for high school seniors in the district from 49 credits to 46. This decrease would have brought the district into agreement with the Idaho State Department of Education’s current statewide requirement of 46 credits.

After the policy was introduced, Kevin Dinning, the principal of Bonners Ferry High School, stood up in order to speak for the teachers at BFHS.

Dinning told the board that he had been confronted by multiple teachers who voiced serious concerns about lowering the graduation requirements and believed that the high school should maintain its high standard of education.

“Part of my job is just to support my teachers,” Dinning told the Herald. “If they are fighting for something, I’m gonna get behind them on it.”

“We just want to make sure we’re not lowering the bar,” Dinning continued. “We still want to set the bar as high as we can,”

Although the number of credits required to graduate high school is still 49, Dinning explained how the district has simply changed where those credits can come from.

“We’ve taken away a required social studies credit and a required P.E. credit — they still have to take those courses, they just don’t have to take as many. And we’re asking that they take more electives instead, which will give them a little more leeway to go after advanced opportunites like dual credit, work-study, or career and technical certifications.”