Are you sure it was the counselor who made the call? Core curriculum and graduation requirement are generally determined by state Departments of Education, by law, while granting local school boards a certain amount of power and control over the curriculums in their own school districts, but even then, I believe it is matter of policy, not someone just “making a call”. The school district’s policy regarding what fulfills core curriculum requirements and what constitutes an elective should be a matter of written policy, somewhere.
Here, for example, is the core curriculum and graduation requirements for the state of Kansas
Graphic arts is kind of a complicated thing now. If it were up to me, if the graphic arts class just covered basic principles of design I would say fine arts but if it also included instruction in computer programs like Photoshop and Corel, e.g. as @Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard mentioned, I would make it fulfill both a fine arts and a computer skills requirement, like the modern dance classes where I went to college. A lot of people like myself, who lacked a natural talent and acuity for dance, took the modern dance classes because they fulfilled both a PE unit and an academic unit. We danced, physically, and had specific assignments that were purely dancing, but we also had lectures and had to write papers on things like the history and aesthetics of modern dance. Two birds with one stone.