Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments School board wants to cut college courses for HS

Our lovely school has gone kind of crazy this year. They're doing several questionable things, including one that is getting them sued on freedom of speech grounds, but the next one is going to be a problem for us in a few years. They're having a meeting on Tuesday (March 5) to discuss cutting back on how many courses they will pay for, for high schoolers taking college courses. They want to eliminate college course funding for those students who have enough credits already -- I'm not sure if that means "in that subject" or all together.

With DS's acceleration in math, he will likely run up against this in high school.

One thing I am thinking about bringing up is that Colorado just passed a law which bases a principal's job review partially on the academic growth of the students. From experience, I know that when DS was not accelerated in math, he had (slight) negative growth on the CSAPs (now TCAPs). If the kids who require acceleration, and therefore college courses in HS, are not allowed to take them, they will stagnate and the principal's review will suffer. That ought to hit them where it hurts!

Any other ideas for what to say at the school board meeting? Of course, one of the things that the school board is messing up lately is that it's very difficult to speak at a meeting, so I'm not sure I'll get to say anything, but we'll see.

Where are you in Colorado? Hate to be negative, but I doubt one student is going to negatively impact a principal's review, especially when your son is probably one of his/her shining stars.

Here are my arguments to continue funding:

-- Your son has a right to one year's growth in school and if he runs out of HS classes, the logical next step is a college class. What is their plan for dealing with that? And how will that save money?

-- If you can't get college classes through this district, you'll have to investigate offerings in a nearby district (taking your student dollars with you).

Have you checked out any early college high schools? Their whole premise involves college classes, so maybe that would address the issue.

Just commiserating, I've heard rumors that they are discontinuing CU Succeeds at our local high school and that they are having an issue with the teacher's union about getting a professor from CO School of Mines to teach some high school math -- apparently, the prof is not accredited to teach high school so that some how runs afoul of the union?

From what I'm hearing the real issue is money. As you know, the higher ed folks have been getting almost nothing from the state, seeing most of the education dollars going to K-12.. They are unwilling to lend out their profs and give college credit to the high school people for less than what the university charges per credit hour. Of course the school district doesn't want to pay that much. Meanwhile the kids don't get what they need.

Nautigal, I have no info or idea what's up where you're at (which I'm guessing is Colorado?)... but fwiw, my suggestion would be to go into the meeting with as much data as possible about the following:

What college classes are offered to hs kids now, how many students are enrolled, etc, and where are they taught (do the students take them on the college campus or are they taught online or at the hs?)

What subjects are college classes offered in? (I'm thinking all of us here are thinking about higher level math/science/etc when we think of our hs students taking college classes... but I'm wondering if there are also other programs - for instance, I think students at our vocational-prep school here take college classes through a culinary program... so just an example... there may be more than one program impacted, which otoh might mean that the program you're concerned about isn't even on the chopping block, kwim?)

What is the expense of these classes - is each hs student paying full college tuition (wherever the $ are coming from)?

and... along with data... look for any "win-win" type data:

Are the college classes that hs students are attending classes that aren't typically fully-enrolled?

Does offering the hs students a chance to attend the college bring any kind of prestige or advertising impact or potential to spread the word about the college to parents/families who might otherwise overlook that college when considering higher ed (either full-time college or adult education that parents take part in etc)?

and lastly...

It never hurts to round up students who've had positive benefits and are enthusiastic about the program and have them attend and testify.

So those are just a few random thoughts!

polarbear

ps - I am also not sure the argument you've suggested for the principal will work well - may be different where you are at, but in our district, my gut feeling is principals are most under-the-gun *and* most highly rewarded for increasing the *lower* end of NCLB test scores.

It is tough to determine how they could help your son or what to say at the meeting since we don't know all of the details, but I think in our district that you have to pay for the college course (we are in PA). I don't think that in PA that the school is under any obligation to provide courses beyond what they already provide. I don't know how the law reads in your state. It seems that it could get messy if the school promised to provide college classes (in any subject) if a kids runs out of HS classes. For example, my eldest took the French AP after 10th - and a good number of kids here are fluent in another language.

The next question is how far accelerated is your son in math, and what courses do they provide at the HS? In our district and the others nearby, they provide Calc AB, Calc BC, linear algebra and AP Stats - would he run out of courses if these are the course offerings in HS? There are some kids here that do run out of math courses, but we are fortunate that there are three 4 year colleges within a mile of the HS, so there are options for math (if you are willing to pay).

Thanks, guys.

At the moment it's not really about my son, as we still have a couple years before high school, but if they do away with the college courses, it will be eventually.

I didn't mean that my son's scores would affect the principal's review all by himself -- but if enough higher-scoring kids lose their "year's growth", the cumulative effect might.

We can't really threaten to leave the district, because this is the best district around and it's the one everybody wants to get into. Which is one of the reasons it's starting to cost them more to do the college courses. Catch-22.

I'm afraid I don't have the information I need there, polarbear, because we just haven't gotten that far along yet. DS is 10, doing mostly middle school this year from his 5th-grade perch, going into 7th next year.

We'll just have to see what happens.

Can I ask what district you are in? Private message me if you prefer. We are also in Colorado, so this is a big concern for me, as well.

PM on the way. We're in SW Colorado.

As it turns out, this was much ado about nothing. I called the office today to find out what it was about, exactly, and it's the *fees* they're thinking of cutting, not the tuition. Stuff like parking on campus, etc.

Good thing, as I wasn't able to make the meeting.

I'd complain about the news coverage concerning this, but I work for the newspaper.

Glad it was over blown. I sent you a message back.