The uproar over dual-credit courses for local high school students turned to praise at Thursday night's Wethersfield School Board meeting.
Area school superintendents have been at odds with Black Hawk College administrators in recent weeks over raising the qualifications required for high school faculty to teach courses which count for college credit. The changes resulted in at least five fewer dual-credit courses available this year at Wethersfield and a dozen at Kewanee High School.
Wethersfield Supt. Shane Kazubowski, one of the most vocal critics of the change, told the school board he has "good news" on the dual credit front. In a meeting with Ken Nickels, BHC dual credit/dual enrollment coordinator; Jeanine Peterson, East Campus dual credit coordinator; and superintendents from four area high schools, plans were made for a Distance Learning Consortium which will allow the school districts to offer courses that were cut this year.
Districts who were invited to be part of the consortium were AlWood, Annawan, Galva, Kewanee, Stark County and Wethersfield. Kewanee and Stark County chose not to be a part of the consortium at this time.
"Downstate schools do not have the financial resources that schools in the Chicago suburbs do," Kazubowski said after the meeting. “Dual-credit courses are the 'great equalizer' for downstate schools in that they allow us to offer our students an opportunity to earn college credit prior to a student graduating from high school. This in turn allows the student to start as a sophomore or beyond when they enter college, thus saving the student and the student’s parents a tremendous amount of college tuition expense."
The Distance Learning Consortium would allow students in a high school classroom access to college professors.
"With the changes in staff qualifications to teach dual-credit courses, distance learning allows schools to expand the college course offerings," Kazubowski said. "The sky is the limit in regards to the number of courses that can be offered to high school students by making use of video cameras, microphones, large-screen TV monitors, and high-speed Internet in a distance learning classroom. The technology available today allows the courses to be offered in real time, with no signal delays. Courses being taught by professors at Black Hawk College’s East and Quad Cities campuses, as well as Western Illinois University, will be able to be offered to local high school students at the same time.”
The distance learning network also would allow high schools with staff members certified to teach college courses to offer the courses in real time not only to their students, but also to students in other high schools who are part of the consortium, thus enabling high schools to pool their teaching resources and enhance the college course offerings to many area schools.
Kazubowski said it is hoped the consortium would be up and running by the 2016-17 school year and initially offer college credit courses in sociology, philosophy, history and possibly psychology.
Wethersfield and Galva set up a pilot distance learning connection two years ago and have been sharing dual-credit classes in U.S. government and speech.
In other news, the board approved the bid of $84,360 to install two new eight-foot lighted signs along Willard Street at the entrances to the high school and elementary school. The bid also covers replacement of lights and poles along Willard Street with new, energy-efficient lights.
An alternate bid of $21,500 for replacement of the school sign on Tenney Street was also accepted. The new sign would not have a message board, as the present one does, and several board members indicated they felt people would still like to see some sort of letter board or an electronic LED panel that could be changed from indoors for posting school events.
School officials will check to see how that modification would change the cost. The work will be paid for with countywide school facilities sales tax.
High school principal Jeremiah Johnston announced that Gerald Partridge, a 1966 WHS graduate and now an attorney living in Iowa City, has established a $1,000 annual scholarship from the Gerald and Lynn Partridge Foundation to be presented to a graduating senior. His class will be holding its 50th reunion next year.
The Wethersfield School District is looking for a new school nurse. Rita Lapan, who would have been with the district 20 years next March, has announced her retirement effective Dec. 31.