North Carolina high schoolers at Ardrey Kell, Ballantyne Ridge and across Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools will no longer take Math 3 or Math 4 starting in the 2028-29 school year.

The state Department of Public Instruction (DPI) launched an online resource hub on Oct. 26 with new standards, crosswalk documents and training materials for teachers, WSOC-TV reported. The hub signals the start of a two-year preparation window before the changes take effect.

The State Board of Education approved the new K-12 math standards without opposition on Oct. 1, according to the News & Observer. The overhaul is the biggest shake-up to North Carolina's high school math sequence in years. A team of about four dozen people wrote the new standards after receiving roughly 5,700 survey responses, WRAL reported.

Students will still take four math credits to graduate. Math 1 and Math 2 remain required but will be revised to emphasize real-world applications and technology, including graphing calculators and artificial intelligence. After completing Math 2, students will pick two electives tied to their post-graduation plans instead of following the old Math 3–Math 4 track.

The elective menu includes Applied Statistics and Data Science, Mathematical and Statistical Modeling, Applied Logic and Reasoning (a renamed version of Discrete Mathematics), AP Precalculus, AP Statistics, AP Calculus, and approved International Baccalaureate or college math courses.

Counselors will guide students toward electives that match their goals. A student headed into business might choose data science. An aspiring engineer could take calculus. Someone entering the workforce or a community college might pick a career and technical education course, according to the News & Observer.

Charles Aiken, section chief of math, science and STEM in DPI's Office of Teaching and Learning, told the state board that employers increasingly say "calculus is less critical than statistics and data analytics."

Sunghwan Byun, an assistant professor in the North Carolina State University College of Education who directs the university's Education Research for Data Science and AI Academy, said the changes better align with today's workforce. Too often, he told WRAL, students get pushed into calculus for their fourth math credit even when it is not relevant to their career path.

One open question for Ballantyne families: the University of North Carolina System's admissions policy historically requires Math 1, Math 2, Math 3 and an approved fourth-level course, according to Hoodline. Whether the system will update that policy to match the new standards has not been announced. DPI also has not determined what testing changes will follow the elimination of Math 3, which currently carries a state end-of-course exam.

The state plans to spend the next two years preparing educators before the 2028-29 rollout.