John Czajkowski, a Chariho senior, made a successful presentation of his portfolio before three judges in January.

The Providence Journal / Kris Craig

Brad Vierra didn’t take his eighth-grade teachers seriously when they warned his class five years ago about tougher graduation requirements that were going into effect at East Providence High School — and all high schools around the state.

Brad barely understood what they were talking about. Among other things, students would have to compile a portfolio of their high school work, showing their proficiency in all subjects. Seniors would also be required to complete a final project that included a research paper, internship and oral presentation.

He ignored the warnings, convinced the new diploma system that would take effect with the Class of 2008 would go away or amount to nothing by the time he was in high school.

It turns out Brad was wrong.

Brad’s class is the first required to collect examples of their work in all subjects — math, English, social studies, science, the arts and technology — and put them in a binder, as part of their portfolio. They must add a statement about what specific skills they have mastered, such as problem solving, effective writing and time management, and on how those skills will help them with future goals.

Brad did the assignments half-heartedly, some by hand, others uploaded to a computer program designed for the portfolios. He fell behind and had to attend “portfolio summer school” for two consecutive summers to complete his portfolio for senior year.

“I thought it was a waste of time because we just did normal assignments we would have done anyway,” says Brad, now 17.

Brad’s mother, Dawn Vierra, feels little sympathy for her son. Dawn, who is active at the school as a member of its improvement team, says she supports the new requirements.

She says she knows parents and students who think the new requirements are worthless busywork. “My own son did not want to do it,” Dawn says. “But what these kids are being asked to do is not out of their league. I truthfully think it is a good thing.”

THE JOURNAL recently asked teachers, parents and students for their feelings about the new system. Their e-mail and telephone responses, as well as visits to high schools in several districts, reveal a range of experiences.

One parent e-mailed that her child’s school was in chaos as it struggled with the new requirements and couldn’t explain their value to parents and students. Another worried her son wouldn’t graduate in June because of the tougher standards.

A mother of a high-achieving student in Exeter-West Greenwich worried the state’s emphasis on “proficiency” set the bar too low for top students. A parent in Narragansett wrote that it was unfair to dump this much work on stressed-out seniors, who are taking SATs and applying to colleges.

A Coventry science teacher said the new system was flawed, explaining that a student could include a “proficient” assignment in a portfolio from a class he or she had failed. A Ponaganset student complained of technical glitches, such as computer crashes destroying student work and the lack of high-speed Internet putting some students at a disadvantage in creating digital portfolios.

Mary Gardiner, a parent of a senior at North Kingstown High School and a teacher there, supports the new requirements, but says it’s been a rocky road for teachers and students. The school tried piloting portfolios a year early with disastrous results. “It flopped the first year,” she said, “because there were technical issues and a lot of stuff got lost in the [computer] system.”

The portfolio system is working more smoothly now, she says. Gardiner acknowledges adapting to the new requirements has meant a lot of extra work for teachers, but she likes how it has forced teachers to work together more closely.

She also believes more students have access to high quality classes and academic standards.

“The positive end of this is more kids are getting exactly what they need,” she said. “One of the main problems I’ve witnessed with my three kids is that it was kind of selective who got the right education and who didn’t. There were some teachers you wouldn’t put your kids in with because you knew they wouldn’t get what they needed. This is forcing all of the teachers to provide the same things to all kids.”

EDUCATION OFFICIALS say they expected some confusion and controversy as the new system rolled out. They defend the tougher system, saying that too many students are graduating without being able to adequately read, write and compute.

To remedy this, students now have to prove in several ways that they are ready to graduate. No longer will educators assume the students have learned subjects and skills based on “seat time” in classrooms, says Roy Seitsinger Jr., director of secondary school reform at the state Department of Education.

The Education Department began working with the state’s 58 public high schools shortly after the state Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education adopted the new requirements in 2003, offering training and assistance to administrators and teachers.

The Regents required every district to select two of three “proficiency-based graduation requirements”: senior projects, portfolios or end-of-course-exams, and allowed wide latitude in how districts adapted them. As a result, the way the requirements have been adapted differs in each district. For example, some districts require paper portfolios and others digital; some require projects in senior year and others in junior year.

The Regents have proposed that districts not in compliance by 2012 will no longer be allowed to issue diplomas, although they have not yet clarified what consequences students in those high schools would have to bear. Eight districts and one state-run school still lack state approval for their new diploma system.

The Regents held public hearings last week to discuss further strengthening the high school regulations, and plan to vote on the proposals later this spring. They are also proposing making the proficiency-based projects count as a third of a student’s graduation requirements, along with completing 20 core courses and passing the standardized tests taken in the 11th grade.

Seitsinger said that despite the tougher requirements, he does not expect to see a significant increase in dropouts or students being held back from graduating in June. In Coventry, however, school officials said that as many as 60 seniors had not yet completed their projects and might not graduate on time.

“Every district in the state understands there is a transition happening here,” Seitsinger said. “It is reasonable for the adults to manage the transition so that it doesn’t affect kids in a negative way. They have to ask themselves, how ready is their system? Have students known well in advance, do parents and community members understand it, has the district had time to work out kinks in their system.”

A PICTURE OF a bright red Ferrari flashes on a large screen, as Chariho High School senior John Czajkowski begins his portfolio presentation. In front of him sits a judging panel of three teachers. Near the back of the classroom, quiet at a student desk, is his mother, Christine Czajkowski.

John is among the first set of students at Chariho to present his work. He must pass the January presentation to be able to graduate in June, but he appears calm in a shirt and tie.

The Ferrari, John tells the judges, symbolizes his future. John has put together a 10-part digital portfolio, which he presents in a PowerPoint-like presentation. “I want to be an engineer for Ferrari and work for a Formula One team,” John says, confidently manipulating a “SMART Board” linked to a laptop. Instead of using the computer keyboard or a mouse to direct the presentation, he merely touches the images projected on the large “SMART Board” screen.

To judge the portfolios, Chariho requires every teacher — elementary, middle and high school — to serve on at least two portfolio-judging panels during second semester. To accommodate all 270 graduating seniors, the presentations are scheduled after school over several months.

The new diploma system, says Chariho principal Robert Mitchell, has required hundreds of hours of teacher training, technical assistance and planning. But he said the work has been worth it.

“Up until this graduating class, it was possible for a student to graduate without ever having effectively demonstrated a research paper or an essay or whether they could problem solve,” he says. “We didn’t have proof that every child could show competence in those areas. But now we will know on June 13, on graduation day, that the students who walk across the dais have demonstrated they can do the things we want them to do before they move on to college and good jobs.”

It takes John Czajkowski about 25 minutes to present his portfolio, allowing him time to show the judges his mastery of those key skills, including technology, literacy, problem solving and collaboration. He also reflects on his strengths and weaknesses and shares his interests.

John’s portfolio includes science projects, a brochure he created for a research paper and a list of his favorite books, including The Elegant Universe, by Brian Greene, a book about scientific “string theory.”

“The only challenge I faced was my own laziness,” John tells the three teachers, each from a different discipline. “My strengths are in the math and science field. I’m a good English student, but grammar is not my strong suit. But I have to keep working on it.”

After the presentation, the judges ask him to wait in the hallway as they deliberate. A few minutes later, he’s called back: he’s passed with flying colors. Pattee Dipollino, the teacher who helped him organize and rehearse his presentation, hugs him and gives him a T-shirt that says, “I survived the Chariho Graduation Portfolio.”

“I understand the benefits of being able to reflect on what I’ve done, and it’s not that much more extra work,” John says after the presentation.

For John’s mother, Christine, the portfolio presentation gave her a chance to finally see what all the letters explaining the requirements sent home over the past few years were really about. “We’ve been talking about this whole process a lot,” she says, “and I just wanted to see what it looked like.”

A FEW WEEKS later, at Coventry High School, senior Shannon Hartman presents her “capstone project” to a group of seven teachers, staff and community members who have volunteered — and received training — to serve on the panel. Equivalent to a senior project, Coventry allows students to complete the “capstone” sophomore, junior or senior year.

Unlike a portfolio, which includes examples of a student’s overall high school career, a capstone, or senior, project is an intensive exploration of one topic, selected by the student. Shannon’s topic is “Stress and the High School Student,” a subject with which she says she is all too familiar.

Shannon put off the project until this year because band practice prevented her from taking the required “capstone class” that prepares students for the four-part project: an internship, community service or other project-based work; research paper; supporting documentation, such as evaluations and bibliographies; and oral and visual presentations.

Shannon developed a three-page questionnaire, asking 40 fellow students what triggers stress for them and how they handle it. Shannon analyzed the results, researched the topic and created a presentation for her classmates.

She shares the survey results, her presentation and the feedback from her peers, using a computer hooked up to a SMART Board. The project, Shannon says, tested her knowledge of many skills, including oral and multimedia communication, self-management, writing journal entries and an annotated bibliography, gathering and evaluating statistics and proving a hypothesis. She also outlines several obstacles, including a limited time with teachers and not having access to PowerPoint software at home.

“This is different than any other project,” says Shannon, who found out two days after her presentation that she had passed. “There was so much more work to it, and I had to not just write a paper, but produce a final product. It is very intimidating, but the main things I learned were the importance of time management and organization and about my topic itself.”

HAVING DONE the work, Brad Vierra’s views on East Providence’s portfolio requirement have changed. He no longer feels it’s a total waste of time.

There was so much confusion about portfolios during his freshman year, the school ended up not including the first 14 assignments Brad submitted in the portfolio.

“None of the teachers knew what they were doing the first year,” Brad said. “They weren’t ready at all.”

Sophomore year, things went more smoothly. By his junior year, the school required students to upload their work to a computer program designed for the portfolios.

For his senior project, Brad shadowed an information technology specialist at a local company. Similar to Coventry’s capstone project, Brad had to participate in an internship, write a research paper, supply materials such as journal entries and evaluations, and give an oral and visual presentation.

He passed his project last month, and he says the experience helped him narrow his future career plans.

“Well, I found out I didn’t want to do that with the rest of my life,” he said. “And I learned how to speak in front of people.”

Brad plans to go to Bristol Community College and study computer-game design after he graduates in June. He says he thinks his high school diploma means more than it did for previous classes.

“I know what it’s like to work really hard to get something done, and to do something that is almost like college work,” Brad said. “It was worth it.”

jjordan@projo.com