School divisions, college team up for Coulee Collegiate
Medicine Hat Public School Division, Medicine Hat College and Prairie Rose School Division have joined forces to create Coulee Collegiate — which combines Beyond Walls and Central High outreach schools with academic upgrading at the college.
MHC president and CEO Kevin Shufflebotham says Coulee Collegiate’s high school courses will be delivered at the college starting in the fall, and will provide outreach students and adult learners with a bridge to post-secondary as well as the ability to earn a high school diploma.
“Anything that helps people transition from high school to post-secondary is a good news story for me,” said Shufflebotham. “That’s what I’m most excited about, introducing students to post-secondary. These students at the outreach schools, they weren’t associated with the college, they weren’t directly associated with post-secondary institutions. Now these students are going to come to the college, they’re going to be taking these courses and they’re going to be introduced to what it’s like to be in post-secondary.”
Coulee Collegiate will feature an array of high school courses spanning Grades 10-12, while offering flexible distance and classroom learning options to students. Shufflebotham says MHC previously offered high school upgrade courses for its students, and in talks with local school divisions, decided to team up.
“These (upgrade) courses are really high school courses, so when we were having conversations with Prairie Rose School Division and (MHPSD), they offer these programs through their outreach schools, so we thought what a great opportunity if we brought it all together,” said Shufflebotham. “They’re basically identical courses — whether they’re high school students or academic upgrading students they’d be taking the same courses — but it’s all under the same roof now.”
Prairie Rose will be looking after recruiting teachers for the initiative. Superintendent Roger Clarke says in partnering up with MHPSD and MHC, they are able to expand to include five new full-time equivalent positions to assist will classes in the fall, for a total of nine.
“There will be five, what we call full time equivalent teachers, hired for that program. That might not be five actual bodies, that might be seven or eight because some teachers will teach one course and that’s it,” he said. “Potentially, some of (the other four positions) might be new hires coming into the outreach side ... some of them will be existing staff that are in the outreach right now for both of our school divisions, and some will be new.”
Clarke added any teachers hired from MHPSD will be seconded to the program.
With any luck, says Clarke, Coulee Collegiate will become a model that the rest of the province can follow.
“Wherever there’s a college, the college certainly could be partnering with local school divisions,” said Clarke. “Our goal is that everyone succeeds in terms of what we need for each entity. Obviously we all gain financially with respect to some difficult financial times that we’re in, in Alberta right now, so that’s a good news story. But over and above all of that, our goal is to make sure students — whether they be high school students, young adults or adults — are getting their educational program needs met well.”