High school, college to team up
Modesto Bee 1/9/07
Columbia College and Sonora Union High School District officials are partnering to offer Columbia Middle College this fall.
Students will enroll at Columbia and high school, taking classes that count toward high school diplomas as well as college degrees.
"These students are frustratingly bright, but are not living up to their potential," Sonora Superintendent Rob Gaskill said. "They never turn in their homework, but their teachers say if they get a great discussion going in class, those students have a lot to add. Their attendance might be hit and miss."
These aren't students who need remedial education, nor are they in Advanced Placement or honors classes, Gaskill said.
Coordinators are hoping to enroll 30 to 60 juniors or seniors next year. Students will be registering at the end of January and again in March.
Columbia and the district have a similar, but more specialized, program that splits time between the college and high school, said Dennis Gervin, Columbia College vice president of student learning.
While the fall schedule hasn't been ironed out, middle college students will be housed on Columbia's campus. Preliminary plans have high school teachers at Columbia in the morning, with college classes in the afternoon. Columbia tuition will be waived.
Potential students often are creative and independent thinkers but generally not connected to the high school scene.
"For whatever reason, high school is not working for them. Comprehensive high schools meet the needs of 85 to 90percent of students. We don't have a safety net for the other students," Gaskill said.
"These students need something more to keep them involved and interested," Gervin added.
The district has three campuses and about 1,800 students. Columbia enrolls about 3,300 students. Much of public school funding comes from daily attendance, and the district will earn about 75 percent of that money, with the rest going to Columbia, Gaskill said.
Students outside Tuolumne County or the district can request a transfer into the district to attend the middle college.
Modesto Junior College and the Stanislaus County Office of Education have had a similar program since 2002. San Joaquin Delta College also has one.
Columbia College and the So-nora district started pursuing the idea six years ago, but held off when the state budget tightened, Gaskill said. Officials studied other programs and visited sites in Stockton and San Mateo.
"We blew the dust off a lot of early work," Gaskill said. They also reconvened a task force composed of a dozen counselors and administrators.
Columbia Middle College is modeled after San Mateo Middle College High School. The partnership between the San Mateo Union High School District and College of San Mateo started in 1998, according to the program's Web site.
One San Mateo Middle College High School student sums up the goal of such programs in a testimonial on the site:
"Before this program, I was a shell of a person. I went through the motions that high school requires with no emotion, no passion, no interest whatsoever. This program has given me much more freedom, the leeway to mature and the ability to take responsibility for myself and as a result, I have developed my own sense of direction."