South Bay School Competition Heats Up

students now have to attend Sweetwater Union High School District from 7th to 12th grade for guaranteed SDSU admission

Parents are up in arms about a policy change that could impact whether or not their children get a guaranteed admission to San Diego State University.

The former policy used to be students who continuously went to Sweetwater Union High School District from 9th through 12th grade could take advantage of the district’s contract with SDSU for guaranteed admission.

With the change, students now have to attend Sweetwater Union High School District from 7th to 12th grade.

The Chula Vista Elementary School District said that change means middle school students in the five charter schools outside Sweetwater will lose the SDSU guarantee.

But the Sweetwater superintendent said the change is aimed at giving students more time to complete their A through G classes necessary to get into college.

β€œIt's really, really, really important for all kids to get as many classes out of the way in the 7th and 8th grade as possible,” said Superintendent Ed Brand. β€œWe're the only district that can do that because A to G has to be approved by UC and CSU … we've done that in our district charter schools haven't.”

The rationale is that by giving students more time to take their A through G classes, more students will complete them.

β€œIt's Sweetwater's decision to make … we're definitely disappointed we don't really understand the rationale, but we want to continue to have a dialogue with Sweetwater about this issue,” said Matthew Tessier with the Chula Vista Elementary School District.

While charters may offer the A through G classes in middle school, those classes cannot be approved by University of California or California State University systems.

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