NEW YORK — As the New York State Education Department moves forward with a years-long effort to overhaul high school graduation measures, officials on Monday announced what could be their most dramatic proposal yet, but one with many open questions.

The plan is to confer diplomas based on public school students demonstrating certain “competencies,” not only earning course credits. On what graduates actually learned, not time in class spent learning.

Currently, students need 44 credits in mandatory subject areas — such as English and math, but also gym and the arts — to graduate with a Regents diploma.

According to a presentation to the Board of Regents at their monthly meeting, to earn a “competency-based diploma,” a student in New York could do an internship or independent study, or work in a lab, rather than take a full-year course. Those decisions would ultimately rest with local districts and their schools.

The proposal comes on top of ongoing efforts to phase out the Regents exam as a graduation requirement.

“In the proposed model, students demonstrate readiness through evidence of learning, not by completing a prescribed number of courses or performing on a single assessment, but by producing substantive evidence of what they know and are able to do,” said Shannon Logan, a special assistant in the department.

The changes are currently on track for implementation for students starting high school in fall 2029, meaning the first cohort of graduates would be in 2033.

But the plan quickly raised as many questions as it answered.

As of Monday’s board meeting, the department was still drafting the statewide competency requirements, as well as rubrics to assure the instruction is high-quality. The competencies will be based on learning standards and what’s known in New York as the “Portrait of a Graduate” — which looks to prepare students to be ready for college and careers, critical thinkers, global citizens and other well-rounded qualities.

Education officials also plan to move toward a statewide transcript, though a draft was not yet ready as of the meeting.

“Transcripts in the past have included a list of classes with corresponding grades and a list of assessments with corresponding scores,” said Angelique Johnson-Dingle, the agency’s deputy commissioner of instructional support.

The new transcript will “clearly and comprehensively reflect student readiness for life after high school,” she said, without offering specifics.

“There are a lot of questions that are out there, and I don’t think that those questions were answered,” said Regent Hasoni Pratts, who represents Brooklyn on the board.

“And I think that we need to have something that informs the public on what’s actually happening.”

“We have such dedicated teachers and staff in these buildings, and they’re asking: ‘How do I prepare for this? I don’t know what that means, that they can demonstrate knowledge some way.’ How do you tell the teacher that, and how do you effectively communicate to parents?”

“We kind of need to have some more some more definitive things that we can actually tell people.”

Commissioner Betty Rosa acknowledged many issues are still outstanding, but that a “tremendous amount of information” has been shared at the local level during school visits and teacher trainings.

“I think the underlying message has been that yes, we’re going to have many, many questions as we go through this,” Rosa said. “But the idea is that we do have to change.”

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