SOUTH DEERFIELD — After receiving numerous letters against proposed graduation requirements, the Frontier Regional School District School Committee Tuesday evening tabled a measure that would require students to still pass the MCAS or a similar standardized test to graduate.

The district’s administration pitched the measure to the School Committee in January, as Frontier and other districts across Massachusetts have been determining how to move forward in the fallout of Question 2, in which 59% of voters in the November 2024 election opted to repeal the requirement that students must pass the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) test to graduate from high school.

Graduation requirements have always been certified by school committees, while the MCAS served as the statewide competency determination for all students. With that requirement repealed, students are now required to complete coursework certified by their local school boards. However, due to federal regulations, Massachusetts public schools are still required to proctor the MCAS tests.

Frontier’s proposal for alternative requirements, presented by Director of Education, Secondary Focus Sarah Mitchell in January, was to make the school’s competency determination the completion of 10th grade English, geometry, biology and U.S. history, which all students take in their freshman or sophomore years.

Then, as part of the school’s proposed graduation requirement, students would have needed to pass the 10th grade MCAS exams in English, math and biology. If they did not pass the MCAS, they could have then earned a passing score on the PSAT or Accuplacer exams. Finally, if they didn’t get a qualifying score on either of those exams, a student could then have earned a qualifying score on the Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) to receive a diploma.

The proposal, however, was met with what School Committee Chair Missy Novak said was a “large volume of comments” from community members who were opposed to the idea. At the January meeting, several School Committee members were also against the measure.

“The intent was not to cause division in the community, nor was it to stand in the face of a ballot question, as some have suggested,” Novak said. “Unfortunately, what was left in the wake of the ballot question was the need for each district to come up with their own competency determination. … I’m not saying [MCAS is] a perfect tool, but it’s what we have until we, or the state, identifies something else.”

Instead, the School Committee, at the request of administrators and Superintendent Darius Modestow, voted to require passage of 10th grade English, geometry, biology and U.S. history as the district’s competency determination.

“Those are usually sophomore-level classes and would meet the criteria of what we need to put in place for a competency determination,” Modestow said, adding that “the idea of making MCAS a requirement to take really struck a chord with folks.” “I think it’s very important to understand that MCAS is not going away. We are still going to be judged on MCAS.”

The competency determination the School Committee approved Tuesday, Modestow said, will remain in place, until the district or the state figure out a different path forward.

“[The state] kind of, I’d say, dumped it on local schools coming out of the November vote,” Modestow said. “I do think there is a healthy conversation out there and I think we have to continue it in the sense of … when we create standards, how do we examine how our students are doing versus the rest of the state, how do we measure our success versus other schools’ success?”

Statewide guidance may be on the way, as Gov. Maura Healey, in her January State of the Commonwealth address, announced she was directing a “statewide Graduation Requirement Council” to develop recommendations for a permanent and high standard.

During Tuesday’s public comment period, Holly Johnson, co-chair of the district’s Special Education Parent Advisory Council, thanked the administration and the School Committee for listening to the community’s feedback.

“I fully understand something has to be put in place. I think putting a standardized test as a requirement — any standardized test — puts many students at a disadvantage,” Johnson said. “I would hope that whatever you come up with, it will be some alternative for kids who simply cannot pass a standardized test. They still need to get a diploma to get a job, even if they are not on a college track.”

Chris Larabee can be reached at clarabee@recorder.com.