Saving on College Tuition
Do you want to save money on college tuition? Is your child confused about what they want to do after high school? Could your child use some skill development for employment?
I’d like to take the opportunity to highlight opportunities our students are able to be a part of. If anyone has any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out and ask.
Choice Ready: Dual Credit: Cur
“Choice Ready” is term used in the academic world to describe the task of preparing a student for post-secondary, the world of work, and/ or the military. We want all students to have the essential skills to be successful in whatever path they choose after high school. Last year VCHS made a concerted effort to really examine ourselves and how we were doing in this area. We found that we had some room for improvement. There were three distinct areas we focused on:
1. Increasing our dual credit options.
2. Exploring career work experience opportunities for students.
3. Adding new courses to help students learn employability skills and life skills. rently students at VCHS have the opportunity to take as many as 24 credits of college credit through Valley City State University just by enrolling in specific high school classes. There are minimum requirements students must meet to enroll in dual credit courses; however, any student who meets those requirements has access to save themselves hundreds maybe thousands of dollars in college tuition (approx.: $600 or more per course). We are exploring ways to add more dual credit courses at VCHS that cover college level general course requirements because we have many students who are choosing to take more than one dual credit course. Taking more credits while in high school not only is a huge financial benefit; it also prepares students for any post-secondary education programs they wish to pursue.
The following chart shows the dual credit courses we offer under an agreement with VCSU. These courses are college level courses taught by VCHS teachers who have their master’s degree in the content area; or have their master’s degree plus the 18 required content credits. Our VCHS instructors are teaching college level courses in the high school setting and they are “hitting it out of the park!” We have 116 students ( juniors/seniors) out of 189 students who are taking at least 1 dual credit class this year. (that is 61%!!) Collectively; we have saved our students and their families over $174,783.00 in college tuition by offering the 8 dual credit classes at VCHS. This is certainly a high point in the educational happenings at the high school.
MATH 107 Pre- Calculus (3 cr) COMM 110-Fundamentals of Public Speaking (12th grade)
(3 cr)
ENGL 110- College Composition (11th grade) (3 cr)
MATH 165 Analytic Geomety & Calculus I (3 cr)
ACCT 200 Elements of Accounting I (3 cr)
ENGL 125 Intro to Professional Writing (12th grade)(3 cr)
COMM 110-Fundamentals of Public Speaking (11th grade) (3 cr)
HIST 104 United States History to present (3 cr)
Career Work Experience:
In the spring of 2019 VCHS and the Barnes County Economic Development Corporation met with local businesses. The feedback from local business leaders was positive and helpful in creating our Career Work Experience (CWE) program. Under this programming, students who are interested in exploring the daily “ins and outs” of a specific career pathway would be assigned/connected with community business partners. Students would report to that business for up to 2 hours a day and would be granted high school elective credit to gain experience in the approved partner business. For students in the program, this opportunity could potentially lead to employment opportunities outside of the school day or after graduation. The goal is that students not only learn job skills, they also gain work experience that will help them be better employees and build their resume’s. To work out the structure, expectations, and requirements we are piloting a few placements this year. Currently VCHS is working with the Sheyenne Valley Career and Tech Center to organize programming for Career Work Experiences (CWE) for students beginning in the 20202021 school year.
Classroom experiences:
Based on the feedback from the spring meeting referenced previously; we also realized that our students need some very specific training on employability skills. We have a designed a new course to be rolled out in the 202021 school year. The course we have designed is specific towards exploring career options and strengthening employability skills. Skills such as how to apply for, interview for and keep employment, verbal and non-verbal communication skills, workforce attendance, workforce ethics, workforce attire, workforce general expectations, and customer service and professionalism are just a few of the highlighted skills our course will focus on. This course will be appropriate for any student in grades 9-12 as an elective credit.
We have a goal! That goal is that every student is prepared for whatever pathway they choose after high school. No one pathway is more encouraged over the other; however, we do want to be sure that we are offering all of the opportunities for all of our students to be successful no matter what they choose and it is an honor to be a part of this process here in Valley City. Kristi Brandt in the Senior High High School Principal for Valley City.