The Albemarle County school system is a semifinalist for a $10 million grant aimed at reworking the traditional public high school experience.

If the application is successful, the division will have $2 million a year for five years to give some county students the option to design their own path through high school.

For the county schools, that means pushing toward a model that gives students more choice in how they meet traditional high school benchmarks.

Students still would be required to pass state Standards of Learning tests and pass the required number of credits to graduate, but they would not be forced to follow the traditional high school course load to do so.

The schools envision a model where students are guided through their education by a team of teachers, mentors and advisers, rather than by following a traditional seven-period regimen of rote classes.

Though Ratliff sees a need for radical change in how high schools treat their students, the purpose of applying for the XQ grant is not to impose one curriculum model on every student.

“The piece that really is of interest to me is that schools should not be focused on creating cookie-cutter pathways, because different kids have different ways of thinking about what they like to do, what their interests are,” said Albemarle Schools Superintendent Pam Moran.

For Moran, the grant application is as much about driving new ideas within the schools as it is making distinct changes to the way students are taught.

The next step for the county schools is to present to XQ a fleshed-out model of how they would spend the grant money.