Honors level courses, acceptable for University of California (UC) certification, are specialized, college level courses. These include Advanced Placement (AP), International Baccalaureate (IB), or advanced courses that have extended content and additional workload that sets them apart from regular high schools courses in the same subject area.
Senate Bill (SB) 801 (Vasconcellos) amends language enacted in 2001, which required that the honors courses assigned extra weighting be only those approved by the University of California and California State University for honors status. A letter was sent out to all district and county superintendents and high school principals stating the limitation has now been entirely repealed. Local educational agencies (LEAs) are empowered to use their own discretion in the assignment of additional grade point weighting for honors courses.
