Maine high school graduates might soon graduate with the same diploma standards that assess proficiency in several subjects and might have more flexibility to choose their own curriculum.

At a meeting with Cumberland County educators at Westbrook High School Tuesday, state education officials announced a plan that would create the standards for a diploma for all high school graduates.

Currently, students must meet minimum state requirements, which include completing one year of art, physical education, music education, and career and devlopment education. In addition, they must take four years of English, four years of math, four years of science and four years of social studies.

There is no measurement of competency, however, said Jeanne Crocker, the South Portland High School principal who was part of the Diploma Stakeholders Group that is working on the new policy.

The state will define the assessment standards by 2010, Crocker said. While the state doesn’t know what the new standards are, students will be required to demonstrate certain levels of competency in English, math, science and technology and social studies.

That will enable educators to better prepare students for college or the workforce because they will need to demonstrate that they have a certain understaning and competence in each subject, Crocker said.

“The students need to meet the standards of the state,” Crocker said, “We are targeting the class of 2016 as the first class to graduate under these standards.”

In addition to demonstrating competency, students will then need to complete all, soon-to-be-determined requirements, for one of the following three content areas – world languages, visual and performing arts, and physical education and health.

Partial completion of requirements must be met in the other two content areas on which students choose not to focus.

Some Cumberland County educators Tuesday said they were concerned that arts and humanities weren’t being weighted as heavily as English, math, science and social studies.

Mary Ellen Shaffer, an arts and humanities teacher at Bonny Eagle High School, said she worried that not requiring students to study at least one year in each arts discipline of music, art and physical education would hinder a student’s education and would not prepare them to meet challenges of the 21st Century.

She said students today must be proficient in other languages and have an understanding of art because jobs are more global and require more creative thinking than in the past.

“Why are we dumbing this down,” Shaffer said. “I’m looking at wellness, I’m looking at the arts, and I’m looking at languages, which are clearly three 21st Century skills. We are taking a huge step back to when I was in elementary school.”

The previous Legislature assigned the Diploma Stakeholders Group, made up of 16 principals, teachers and administrators throughout the state, the task with developing a plan to standardize graduation requirements.

The stakeholders group requires students to meet standards in the four core curriculum areas of English, math, science and social studies because setting the same standards for all eight content areas would be too time consuming and costly, said John Wright, dean of the School of Applied Science, Engineering and Technology at USM, and Diploma Stakeholder member.

“If we wanted to hold students to the same standards in all eight content areas, we would have to require them to go to school longer,” he said. “It wasn’t possible or reasonable to do that.”

Under the recommendations, beginning in middle school, students could begin designing their own curriculum readying them for graduation, Crocker said. The students can review their curriculum each year, molding it to fit their needs.

So far the standards proposal is still in the Department of Education revisers office, Crocker said. Tuesday’s meeting was the first of 10 where the Department of Education will meet with educators in all 16 Maine counties to discuss the proposal.

Crocker said the Department of Education hopes to begin a pilot program with schools that feel they can meet the standards by 2010.