During the 1990s, some alternative assessment schools, similar in character to charter schools, were founded in parts of New York in an attempt to provide a way for students to graduate high school without taking any Regents Exams. Usually, the substitute graduation assessment involved would consist of the review and grading, by a panel of teachers, of an academic portfolio, or collection of the student's best work from all his or her years at the school. From such a "portfolio examination" would be issued a "Regents equivalency" grade for the areas of Math, English, History, and Science, and a "Regents Equivalency" diploma would be awarded to the student at commencement.
However, by the end of the 1990s most if not all of these self-labeled "alternative schools" have been forced to adopt some or all of the standard Regents Exam, and can no longer use portfolio examination criteria as the sole basis for graduation from the school. A notable example of this progression from full portfolio-based assessment to nearly-total Regents Exam based assessment is The Beacon School.
Though all public schools are required to follow either the Regents Exam system or the above mentioned alternative assessment, private schools may or may not. Most private schools do use Regents exams, and award Regents diplomas, but some private schools -- particularly academically prestigious ones -- do not, on the argument that their own diploma requirements exceed Regents expectations. For instance, high schools run by the Jesuit order of Catholic priests (for instance, Regis High School (New York City) or Canisius High School (Buffalo)) have not used Regents exams for decades.
Additionally, in some schools, individual students can be exempted from taking the Regents Examination in Languages other than English if they complete a sequence in Art/Music, Business, and Technology (usually composed of five credits).