STATE OF ARKANSAS
PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL
GRADUATION REQUIREMENTS

21 units of credit must be earned by a student in grades 9-12 in order for that student to be entitled to graduate from an Arkansas public high school. Students who want to participate in the Home Ed graduation must also earn a minimum of 21 credit hours. Of the 21 units, 18 must be comprised of academic credit (1 unit = 2 semesters with the exception of classes taken at local colleges where, for Home Ed purposes, one semester is equivalent to one unit). For college entrance and scholarship purposes, it is strongly recommended that homeschool students use the State of Arkansas graduation requirements as a guideline for what courses to take throughout high school.

• English - 4 units to be taken in 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th grades English Language Arts - 1/2 unit (English, Journalism, Grammar, or Communications)
• Oral Communications - 1/2 unit
• Social Studies - 3 units, including:
  • World History - 1 unit
  • US History - 1 unit
  • Civics or Government - 1/2 unit
• Mathematics - 4 units, including:
  • Algebra - 1 unit
  • Geometry or its equivalent - 1 unit
  • All students must take a math course in grade 11 or 12 and complete Algebra 2.
    
  • 1 unit from the following options (Transitions to College Math, Pre-Calculus, Trigonometry, Statistics, Computer Math, Algebra III or Advanced Placement Math).
• Science - 3 units,including:
  • Physical Science - 1 unit
  • Biology - 1 unit
  • Chemistry - 1 unit
  • Physics - 1 unit
• Physical Education - 1/2 unit
• Foreign Language - 2 units (2 consecutive years of same language recommended for college entrance)
• Health and Safety - 1/2 unit
• Fine Arts - 1/2 unit (art, dance, drama, music)
• Technology - 1 unit
• Career Focus - (homeschool students can do electives instead of career focus)
• Electives - any additional units

SMART CORE
The more rigorous Smart Core is chosen by many.

Smart Core is an initiative created to improve Arkansas' high school curriculum in order to increase college enrollment and college completion rates. Smart Core is part of a national initiative presented at the 2005 National Education Summit on High Schools.

Arkansas students who take the recommended core courses or more continue to perform better on the American College Test (ACT) compared with students who take less than the recommended core. The recommended core courses, according to ACT, include four years or more of English, three years or more of math, three years or more of social studies, and three years or more of natural sciences.

Home Ed follows the State or Arkansas requirements (as a minimum standard). To view the State of Arkansas requirements for Smart Core, see the Smart Core section and "Smart Core Course Code List" for the pertinent graduation year at the Arkansas Department of Education's web site.

It is important to note that high school graduation requirements and college entry requirements may not be the same. For college entry, the more academic and upper-level classes taken, the better. Those students who are interested in going to college would benefit from 4 units of social studies, science and math, and at least two consecutive years of foreign language.

Note: Only courses actually taken during grades 9-12 can be transcripted. Colleges and all scholarships want to see 4 years of science, 4 years of math, and 2 consecutive years of foreign language take DURING THE HIGH SCHOOL years (9th - 12th). While some secondary schools may recognize physical science, algebra 1, and foreign language in the 8th grade, most COLLEGES and NO SCHOLARSHIPS will.