The House Education Committee, like the Senate Education Committee before it, has voted with just one dissenting vote to accept the new State Board of Education rule requiring two online courses to graduate from high school in Idaho, with the caveat that the state board will take action in February to remove the requirement that one of the two courses be "asynchronous." Rep. Linden Bateman, R-Idaho Falls, the lone dissenter, said he supported the first two bills in the "Students Come First" reform package last year, but opposed the third because it placed too many mandates on local school districts. "Now, I'm so happy we moved from 8 credits to two" for the online-course graduation requirement, he said. But he said the state doesn't need to place requirements like this on local school districts. "Let local districts decide these things," he said. "I don't think we need to be afraid of 'em, and perhaps we've gone too far in mandating too many courses."