Long Beach high schoolers might soon get a little more breathing room in their schedules. Long Beach Unified School District officials are floating a plan to cut the district’s math graduation requirement from four years to three, while tacking on new semester-long requirements in ethnic studies and personal finance. Board leaders say the move is meant to sync local rules with new state mandates and expand student choice, all without changing the total number of credits needed to graduate. The school board is set to weigh the proposal on Wednesday, Feb. 18, and if it passes, the math change would kick in for the class of 2027.
As reported by the Long Beach Post, district staff outlined the draft policy at a recent board meeting, explaining that students could trade a fourth year of algebra or calculus for classes that better match their college or career plans. The proposal would build in one semester of ethnic studies and one semester of personal finance while still keeping the overall graduation credit tally the same.
State mandates and timeline
California is already steering districts in this direction. The state requires a one-semester ethnic studies course starting with students graduating in the 2029–30 school year and a standalone personal finance semester starting with the class of 2030–31, according to the California Department of Education. The governor’s office has also rolled out a plan and sponsored legislation to make financial literacy a graduation requirement, per the Governor’s Office, leaving districts to juggle timelines, course catalogs, and staffing.
Why the district is backing off the fourth year
The proposed rollback would unwind a 2019 board decision that pushed LBUSD students into four full years of math, a move originally designed to cut down on remedial math once graduates hit college. District leaders now say the results have been mixed. Chief Academic Officer Brian Moskovitz told trustees that “each June the board must approve waivers for about 1,100 to 1,200 seniors,” a sizable stack of last-minute paperwork. He also said “most of our graduating seniors will continue to take the fourth year of math because that makes them competitive for post-secondary options.”
According to the Long Beach Post, some teachers and parents told the board that the four-year rule boxed students into math classes they did not want or need, while others argued the additions of ethnic studies and personal finance are overdue in a district that routinely talks about college and career readiness.
How students would meet the new requirements
District officials say students could clear the new ethnic studies requirement in several ways. Options include existing dual-enrollment partnerships with Long Beach City College and California State University, Long Beach, as well as district-run electives and a tweaked U.S. history sequence. LBUSD outlines how dual enrollment works and who qualifies, while California State University, Long Beach describes a long-running ethnic studies dual-enrollment effort that has already enrolled hundreds of local high school students…