Everything you need to meet California’s Alternative Diploma Pathway requirements
See why 250+ California school districts trust Unique Learning System for their students.
Alternative Diploma Pathway
What is it and how does it help students?
In California, the Alternative Diploma Pathway offers a crucial opportunity for students with significant cognitive disabilities to attain a high school diploma. A diploma may help them gain access to post‑secondary education, pursue more employment options, and build confidence and a sense of inclusion. Students must meet state minimum course requirements using California Alternate Achievement Standards and federal graduation criteria for state accountability.
Check out five reasons Unique Learning System solves your California Alternative Diploma Pathway needs.
1. A standards-first approach addresses CA’s Alternative Diploma Pathway course requirements
Every ULS lesson plan is specifically created to address prerequisite skills with age‑appropriate content and align to California grade‑level alternative standards. Unique learners get access to the same concepts as their peers in general education while also receiving a strategic spiraling scope and sequence of prerequisite skills embedded in ULS’s content. And our content experts continuously monitor changes to standards and update materials to ensure students achieve consistent growth in academic skills.
2. Automated, customizable lesson plans align with CA’s Alternative Diploma Pathway coursework
Take advantage of a tool that provides a recommended sequence of CA standards‑based activities that support APD requirements: the Learning Pathway. Educators can save time in lesson planning and assign lessons to students easily and quickly. Learning Pathways include World History, American Government, Economics, Biology, US History, Integrated Math, Algebra I, ELA, and Physical Science.
3. Ongoing standards-aligned content and assessments additions address CA’s Alternative Diploma Pathway requirements
New California standards-aligned science, social studies, and math content and assessments will be added throughout the 2024–2025 school year to expand our current content offerings. These additions will help students progress from foundational skills through more advanced concepts—all aligned to California’s Alternative Diploma Pathway requirements. New ULS Classroom Reader Packages include printed unit books and communication boards to provide a multimodal learning experience for students.
4. Automatic data generation and reporting
Student performance in activities is automatically tracked for easy progress monitoring and demonstration of standards achievement and skill mastery. To guide compliance at the classroom or individual level, ULS’s daily tracking empowers teachers to follow each student’s performance, monitor lesson completion, measure progress toward IEP goals and standards, and quickly personalize instruction.
5. Unparalleled customer support and resources
Best-in-class support provides districts with everything they need to execute California’s Alternative Diploma Pathway requirements through webinars, knowledge base articles, teacher reference materials, and virtual and in person professional learning.
What else is in our CA alt-Diploma-aligned curriculum?
High school coursework
High school content includes English, math, science, and social studies courses along with transition lessons and resources. Add Classics to give students with disabilities equitable access to the same world class literature their peers are reading.
Science of Reading alignment
Unique Learning System makes the Science of Reading (SoR) accessible for teachers with students with moderate to severe disabilities. As the only solution provider with lessons specifically developed to address the SoR for special education students, we’re committed to incorporating the most up-to-date and effective research- and evidence‑based practices to improve literacy outcomes for all students.
