In addition to core studies in English, math, science, history,
languages, and the fine
arts, students take a required sequence in religion and philosophy: 6th -
grade students study the Apostles» Creed and the saints; in the 7th
grade, they focus on the Church and the Ten Commandments; 8th graders conduct an overview of the Bible and the Sacraments; 9th -
grade students study the Old Testament, the Apologetics, and C. S. Lewis's Mere Christianity; the 10th -
grade focus is the New Testament and Church history; 11th
grade introduces metaphysics and ethics; and the 12th -
grade course features the philosophy and social teachings of the Catholic Church.
That affects the roughly one in five teachers whose students now sit for those exams, essentially
language arts and math in
grades 4 through 8, but will become more of a concern as additional state tests are
introduced.
Currently, performance on the 11th -
grade Smarter Balanced assessments, which were
introduced in the spring of 2015 and are aligned with the Common Core standards in math and English
language arts, is used to assess students» readiness.