Jim Thorpe Area School District plans to reduce the amount of credits necessary to graduate for its students attending Carbon Career and Technical Institute on a part-time basis to accommodate for differing building schedules.

Currently, Jim Thorpe high school students and those attending CCTI full-time need 25 credits to graduate. Under the proposed new system, half-time CCTI students from Jim Thorpe would need 22.5 to graduate.

Thomas Lesisko, Jim Thorpe High School Principal, said the half-time CCTI option is become increasingly popular for Olympian students.

“The time schedules are different at CCTI than they are here and while we haven’t run into it yet, we know there will come a point where a student is short a credit or two because of that,” Lesisko said.

In the past, Lesisko said, half-time CCTI students were able to get the required amount of credits often because they stockpile enough in their freshman and sophomore.

“Eventually we’re going to have a sophomore who wants to go to CCTI and just won’t be able to get enough credits,” Lesisko said. “In their technical areas at CCTI, the students are still doing math and science, which are some of the credits we are taking away. So they are still getting exposure.”

Superintendent Robert Presley said credit adjustments were also made in his previous districts to account for missed classes because of transportation time to and from the local technical school.

The new credit requirements still match up with Pennsylvania Department of Education standards, which call for a minimum of 21 credits necessary to graduate.