​MEDIA CONTACT: Matt Cardoza, GaDOE Communications Office, (404) 651-7358, mcardoza@gadoe.org or Meghan Frick, GaDOE Communications Office, (404) 656-5594, mfrick@doe.k12.ga.us

-Follow us on Twitter and Facebook

January 27, 2015 -- Superintendent Woods’ statement regarding House Bill 91, which would retroactively eliminate the Georgia High School Graduation Test as a requirement for students who took the test between 1994 (when the test was established) and the present. State Board Rule in 2011 eliminated the test as a requirement for graduation, but that elimination did not extend to students who had already taken the test.

“I am fully supportive of HB 91 because it puts all of our students on the same playing field. We no longer require the Georgia High School Graduation Test for our students, yet we are not allowing students from previous years to graduate because they have not passed the graduation test. If we are not requiring it for our current students then we should not penalize students in the past who met all graduation requirements except for passing this one test. This law would eliminate the cumbersome process students go through to apply for a waiver from the State Board of Education, and it would allow more students the opportunity to obtain a high school diploma and go on to some form of postsecondary education, where they can get skills needed to have a great quality of life and be contributors to our society.”​