Mandan High School's class of 2009 could be required to take an additional math class to graduate.

The Mandan School Board's curriculum committee discussed the possibility at the board's monthly committee meeting Monday.

Currently, Mandan students are required to take two units of math to graduate, and the committee will recommend increasing the requirement to three. Most students already take three math classes, Principal Mark Andresen said. Out of last year's graduating class, 180 to 190 of the 237 who graduated took three math classes.

Mandan is concerned about its high school math assessment scores because it failed to meet federal accountability requirements under the No Child Left Behind Act with its math proficiency. No Child Left Behind calls for proficiency in math and reading as determined by a state assessment test. Districts and schools are rated on their general student population and the breakdown of the population by race, special education, language proficiency and other parameters.

But students who only take the minimum requirement do not do as well on the North Dakota State Assessment Test, and they do not necessarily meet minimum college requirements for math.

"They're not going to be proficient unless they take at least algebra I," math teacher Perry Just said.

Bismarck Public Schools also have found a relation between math classes and proficiency scores on assessment tests. The students who take four math classes and the more advanced math classes score in the proficient level or above more often than students who take general math and one core math class, which is algebra I, algebra II or geometry, according to an analysis by Bismarck Assistant Superintendent John Salwei.

Adding a math requirement does not significantly change Mandan's course offerings. The business math class would be changed to a math applications class, covering pre-algebra, algebra, geometry and business applications.

The changes the school proposed to the committee Monday does not address algebra, which Superintendent Wilfred Volesky said caused him concern. "Part of what we need to do is give them a chance to pass" the state assessment test, he said.

Algebra has been shown to improve a student's chance of scoring proficiently on the state assessment test, and Just said he did not know if it would make enough of a difference on assessment scores. A student could take three math classes without taking algebra and meet the requirement, depending on the restrictions placed for enrollment in the math applications class.

The Mandan School Board will consider the change in math requirements at its next meeting, at 5:30 p.m. Dec.18 at the Central Administration Building.