ADAMS TWP — The wheels are in motion for an increase in the number of credits required to graduate from Mars High School.

The school board at its Tuesday night meeting voted 7-1 to post a potential new policy that would change the graduation requirement from 23.5 to 25 credits.

According to the policy, the program would begin in the next school year and be rolled out over four years.

Lindsay Rosswog, high school principal, said the policy was created with careful consideration of its impact on students.

The lone dissenter was William Pettigrew, who said he is concerned with the policy’s potential impact on the budget as well as marginal students.

“Raising standards does not necessarily mean quality education,” Pettigrew said. “More doesn’t necessarily mean better.”

Rosswog said the policy takes into account the curriculum changes she recommended for the high school and which were approved by the board.

Those changes include health and physical education classes every day for nine weeks and adding a foundations of business course for freshmen, advanced placement computer science and basic calculus.

Prerequisites also will be adjusted to accommodate the course additions.

The names of several courses will be modified, and distance learning and the math lab will be removed from the course selections. The latter two courses have not been available for two years, Rosswog said.

She said credit requirements for some courses as well as the minimum credit requirements for each grade also will change.

School board President Dayle Ferguson said because some of the course changes will impact the incoming ninth graders, the board wanted them in place before the end of the current school year.

“We are excited to have some new ideas and new options for our kids,” Ferguson said.

The policy will be posted on the district Website, www.marsk12.org.