Does three-tier plan affect dual enrollment kids

Over the past several months there has been passionate debate about the changes the Santa Rosa County School Board has been forced to make as a result of the critical budget deficits for this year and the next fiscal school year.

One of the most heated issues is the change to a three-tiered busing system effective next school year. In this transportation schedule, buses will pick up elementary, middle, and high school students and transport them to school at staggered times.

Most county high schools will be looking at a 9:15 a.m. start time for next year. Most elementary schools are going to begin at 7:15 a.m. and most middle schools will start at 8:15 a.m.

Many parents and students who are upset with the change in scheduling for the schools say the three-tier schedule will affect elementary children’s sleep; the ability to have a younger child supervised after school; high school students ability to work and participate in sports or other extracurricular activities; and now, a new issue is being raised. What effect will the new three-tier busing schedule and start times have on students who attend college through the dual enrollment program?

Dual Enrollment allows students to simultaneously earn credit toward a high school diploma and a college degree or career certification in their junior and senior years. Courses often take place on the community college campus with college instructors either during school hours, in the half-day programs, or during the students’ free time in the afternoon and at night.

Tuition and academic fees are free to high school students enrolled in Dual Enrollment.  The student pays special fees such as supplies for classes. This is a tremendous boon to being able to afford a college education.

In Tuesday’s graduation ceremony at Pensacola Junior College, 61 students earned their associate degrees while attending high school.
Mary Esslinger, who coordinates the dual enrollment program at PJC says depending on the degree of changes for next year, fewer students may be able to fully utilize dual enrollment to earn college credits.

“Some high school students who take classes through dual enrollment take the classes in their free time. Some take the classes during the summer and some take during the school day by attending their high school for part of the day and PJC for part of the day. We even have some students who qualify for a program allowing them to attend only PJC during their senior year yet maintain enrollment at their high school. This allows them to graduate with their class and to participate in school sports and activities,” says Esslinger.

“I don’t think we can really answer yet [the question regarding what effect the new schedule will have on the dual enrollment program] because they are still looking at how the schedules will be. If they do a rotating schedule, it would be very difficult for a student to do the part time enrollment [half day] because their schedule would not always be the same day to day. A rotating schedule would have a dramatic impact on dual enrollment,” Esslinger says.

Tim Wyrosdick, Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction in Santa Rosa County, says there has been some discussion of rotating schedules for the schools currently on a 7 period day.

“What we have done, now that we know the start times and dismissal times for schools, is that we have gone back to the drawing board in some ways regarding the high schools. We are looking at how the change in times is going to affect academics, such as dual enrollment; how the changes are going to affect athletics and extracurricular activities; and we are looking at how these changes are going to affect children’s supervision at home and the ability of our students to work at jobs with the schedule change,” says Wyrosdick.

“We are listening to parents’ and students’ needs and we are working with the schools to provide a flexibility that hasn’t been provided in the past. We are giving schools more freedom to reorganize schedules to meet the needs of their students and their families.

“We are discussing several ways to accommodate students who work, we have talked about allowing them to take DCT or OJT as their curricula and take it at the first or last period of the day in order to maximize the time they will have available to work,” says Wyrosdick.

“I just want the parents to know we are taking all of the input we get into consideration. We are listening to them and we are taking action to help meet the needs as they are brought to our attention.”

Pace High Principal Frank Lay says his school is very proactive in making dual enrollment as easy and accessible for students as it can.
“We teach most of the dual enrollment classes at Pace right here on campus with our own faculty. This makes it real easy for the kids to take this opportunity to earn college credit. The new start times won’t have any effect really on us at Pace High because of this, and if it does affect some of our students, we are going to work with them,” says Lay.

Lay says he is proud of the children who earned college degrees Tuesday night.

“It is very exciting, we are pleased about these children being so successful academically,” Lay says.

Milton High School Guidance Counselor and Dual Enrollment Coordinator Paula Drinkard says she doesn’t predict any issues with the new schedule and the dual enrollment program at Milton High.

“We don’t really have many students who attend PJC in the afternoon, but we do have kids who attend half days at PJC. At this point we are not sure how the schedules at PJC are going to change, if they do. Right now the PJC dual enrollment classes start at 7:30 a.m., so there might actually be extra time for the students to attend classes with the later school start time,” says Drinkard.

Wyrosdick says the Santa Rosa County School Board will continue to work hard to preserve the academic integrity of the classroom.

“Board members went into this budget crisis knowing there would be some painful cuts and difficult choices to make. Throughout budget deliberations and workshops the members of the board have always maintained one, that they don’t want to lay people off, and two, they don’t want to touch the classroom. All of the decisions of the Santa Rosa County School Board have been made with these two goals in mind,” says Wyrosdick.