[Vision2020] Idaho student knocks out college classes in high school, organizes workshop on how to do it

[Tom Hansen]

Courtesy of today's (November 10, 2015) Spokesman-Review.

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Idaho student knocks out college classes in high school, organizes workshop on how to do it
By Betsy Z. Russell

Hannah Keinert will graduate from Priest River Lamanna High School this spring with about two years of college credits completed.

She is among a growing number of students taking advantage of an array of dual-credit programs Idaho is offering to high school students to give them an opportunity to leverage ambition to get a jump on university studies.

Now she wants to share how she accomplished it with other students in her school, and their parents, by organizing a symposium. 

“Hopefully I have a lot of parents and kids attend,” the 17-year-old said. “The state is helping out. This can really help you in the long run.”

Idaho first established its early credit and concurrent enrollment programs in 1997 at the urging of the late Rep. Wayne Meyer of Rathdrum, who saw how successful similar programs had been in Washington. Idaho allows high school students to earn high school and college credit for the same course.

Idaho has since expanded the programs and started paying for part of the costs, and the numbers of Idaho high school students earning college credit is swelling. The state will pay $6 million for the programs this year.

“It’s fairly cost-efficient for the state and definitely for the student,” said Sen. Steven Thayn, R-Emmett, who has sponsored several bills expanding dual-credit and advanced opportunities for students over the past five years. “We’ve been working toward making it easier for Idaho students.”

The idea has long been building across the nation. A 2013 survey by the National Center for Education Statistics found that 82 percent of high schools nationwide had at least some students enrolled in dual-credit courses, and 7 percent had students earn an associate degree by the time they graduated from high school.

Jennifer Zinth, a researcher with the Education Commission of the States, said numerous studies show students who earn college credit in high school are more likely to enroll in college and succeed.

Last year, Idaho had 14,558 students earn advanced or college credits, according to the state Department of Education. And in the West Ada School District, the state’s largest, a joint program with Idaho State University allowed 47 students to graduate from high school last year having already earned their associate degrees.

“This year, we’re on track to graduate about 107,” West Ada district spokesman Eric Exline said.

Those students will enter a four-year college degree program already halfway done, a move that could save them and their families money and reward them with a head start on graduate school or careers.

“It really shortens the window for kids to get through college, especially if they’re aspiring to get a master’s degree or something beyond that,” Exline said. “You can become a lawyer in five years instead of seven. So a growing number of kids are taking advantage of it.”

But Keinert’s North Idaho school doesn’t have the resources of West Ada. It offered three dual-credit classes on campus this year – two English classes and a sociology class. West Ada offered all the college classes at its Renaissance High School, a magnet school that’s open to anyone in the district.

“My school is small – it’s only 350 kids,” Keinert said. “I just didn’t feel very challenged. I just wanted to kind of challenge myself a little bit more.”

There are three ways for Idaho high school students to take dual-credit courses and receive full or partial reimbursement from the state: on campus with high school teachers who are qualified to teach a college-level course; online; or at a college.

“I decided I will just try this out and see if I’m able to manage a job and a social life and dual credit,” Keinert said.

She works as a barista and retail clerk along with her full course load. 

“So I did one online dual-credit class to start, English 101,” she said. “It was a good enough challenge for me and I was able to balance it.”

After a few more, her school counselor told Keinert she could take all dual-credit courses her senior year if she wanted – if she also put in some summer classes. She was willing. 

“I’m just not a very good online student. I’d rather have a face-to-face with my professors,” she said.

So she enrolled at North Idaho College and is commuting there from Priest River, an hour-plus drive that begins at 6:30 a.m.

She’s planning to move into a college dorm for the second semester, and she’s also in the running to be valedictorian of her high school class. The dual-credit symposium is her senior project.

“I’m doing a PowerPoint of my experience, and then I have three speakers, and then questions and answers in between each one,” Keinert said.

Representatives of the state Department of Education in Boise will attend; Thayn said he’s planning to extend a trip he already was making up north to attend Keinert’s meeting.

The dual-credit program is best suited for students planning on attending in-state colleges. 

“Because I’m staying in-state, I have a much better chance of everything transferring,” Keinert said. “I’ve been pretty careful about just trying to do my generals right now, because I know English 101 will transfer, I know English 102 will transfer. I’ve knocked out all the ones I know will transfer for sure.”

Keinert is trying to decide between Lewis-Clark State College in Lewiston and Boise State University after she graduates, and she is leaning toward LCSC because it offers a degree program she’s interested in, combining business and communications, and her pre-graduation college classes will fully count toward the degree there.

Keinert said she thinks dual credit is a great opportunity for kids in her community, and it could keep college affordable for them and their families by cutting a year or two off the price tag. The daughter of two teachers, she noted that her part of the state is facing economic challenges.

“As soon as a couple of the mills closed in my community, it just slowly started to spiral,” she said.

Other students at her school already are taking advantage of the programs. “There’s a girl who is a junior who will graduate with even more college credits than I have,” she said. “So more people are starting to jump on board, but it’s not something to be taken lightly, either.”

Exline noted that students who dual-enroll in college classes are earning not only real-world college credits, but real-world grades.

“It is part of your college transcript, so if you take a math class and you get a D, that’s the grade you have in that class when you carry it forward in college,” he said. “So kids have to be prepared to work hard in those classes and do well, because it will follow them.”

Said Keinert: “I’ll pretty much be graduating college at 20, and hopefully that gives me sort of an edge in the workforce.”

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Priest River High School senior Hannah Keinert talked about earning college credits while taking classes at North Idaho College on Monday, November 9, 2015. She will graduate this year with nearly two years worth of college credit.

http://www.spokesman.com/photos/2015/nov/09/314804/

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Seeya 'round town, Moscow, because . . .

"Moscow Cares" (the most fun you can have with your pants on)
http://www.MoscowCares.com
  
Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

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