Issues were raised about high school students taking college classes during the regularly scheduled meeting for Creston School Board Monday at Creston School District administration building.
Phil Wardenburg, Creston High School industrial technology teacher, gave a rundown of the program’s success, but expressed concerns about students attending Southwestern Community College classes instead of gaining a basic education at the high school.
“I don’t mind losing a kid their junior or senior year to go build a house, I think that’s absolutely wonderful, just absolutely wonderful ... because we don’t offer that at Creston High,” Wardenburg said. “But, yet, there are students going out there, and I’m seeing that F-list, and here are students failing in some of those areas. Yet, they continue on next semester in those courses. ... Should they be still coming in and getting their fundamentals a lot better than going boom right up there and not having success?”
Bill Messerole, Creston High School principal, said 138 high school students are currently enrolled in at least one college class at Southwestern Community College (SWCC) during the school’s spring semester.
“We have a broad curriculum at Creston High School, and this just is a supplement to that,” Messerole said. “We’re fortunate that we work so closely with SWCC so that students have these opportunities.”
The most common online college classes students are taking are introduction to psychology and introduction to sociology. Both classes must be taken at the high school level before the student is allowed to take it at the college level.
“Do we not have classes that will challenge young people and keep them on our campus?” said Galen Zumbach, school board member.
The five most popular classroom classes are composition II, fundamentals of oral communication, career academy for health (the nursing program) and Western civilization, which are taken at SWCC, and calculus I, which is taught before school starts for the day at CHS.
“We try to be very careful about placing students (in college classes),” Messerole said. “There’s a lot of factors that go into that.”
An example Messerole gave was a student would not be pushed to take calculus if the student struggles in math.
College classes are also being utilized because of a piece of Iowa legislation called senior year plus, which was put into place in 2008 and “provides Iowa high school students access to advanced placement courses and a variety of means by which to concurrently access secondary and post-secondary credit,” according to the Iowa Department of Education website.
“Research shows that nearly 90 percent of jobs require some type of post-secondary education or training,” language on the education department’s website states. “Providing these opportunities to Iowa students still in high school helps them meet Iowa’s workplace needs and assists them in reaching their future goals.”
The largest group of Creston High School students taking SWCC courses while in high school are seniors, but there are also a large amount of juniors. There are 11 CHS students taking the career academy for health, or nursing, program.
“The average GPA (grade point average) of Creston High School students taking a SWCC class is 2.77 (out of 4.0),” Messerole said. “The average GPA for the region 14, that’s the whole area, the average GPA for SWCC students is 2.74.”
Messerole said some students who fail a college course can be mandated to reimburse the school, while other students do not have to. It all comes down to the class and the senior year plus guidelines.
“I think it’s very beneficial that you have access to these courses while you’re in high school,” Messerole said. “You know, number one, they’re upper level and rigorous courses, and, number two, you’re getting a jumpstart on your college career.”
However, Messerole also said a disadvantage of taking college courses would be high school students undertaking college-level homework.
Ron Dunphy, Creston School Board president, was concerned about the reasons college classes are offered to high school students in the first place, claiming doing it for the students’ parents was wrong.
“I don’t understand if there’s that much demand to go to Southwestern Community College, why it’s not offered at the high school building,” Dunphy said. “If all we’re doing is providing the service to parents to diminish the cost of their kids’ college education, I don’t think that’s why we’re spending what we’re spending per year, I don’t think that’s the function of the Creston Community School District.”
According to administrators, the inability to teach college classes at the high school lies in the fact that it is difficult to find a teacher qualified to do it. A master’s degree is required to teach a college course.
In other school board news:
• Cory Housh and Christina Long were contracted to be first-grade aides. Peggy Krambeck-Eblen and Cara Soukup were contracted to be basketball cheerleader sponsors. Kevin Cooper and Paul Jameson were contracted to be driver’s education instructors. Carla Smith was contracted to be ninth-grade softball coach.
• Students were recognized by school board members for their achievements in large group speech contest held Jan. 24 in West Des Moines. Groups that received a II rating were two musical theater scenes.
• Large group speech contest groups that received a I rating and continued on to state competition Feb. 7 were ensemble acting, two improvisation groups and reader’s theater. Of those groups, reader’s theater received a II rating. Ensemble acting and both improvisation groups received I ratings. Groups that received a I rating at state and may be selected by judges to perform at All State Contest Saturday in Ames.
• CHS Jazz Band participants received third place out of 10 3A bands at Simpson Jazz Contest Jan. 30, as well as straight division I ratings at Iowa High School Music Association’s state jazz festival in Atlantic Jan. 31.
• Cassandra Batten, Ben Irr, Ann Fehrle, Paul Lorenz, Patrick Normandeau, Allison Norton, Mackenzie Norton and Tyler Peters were named to Drake Honor Jazz Band and performed at Drake University in Des Moines Feb. 10.
• MaKayla Burgmaier, Christina Newcomb, Isaac Ralson, Tina-Sue Richards, Mason Perkins, Prestyn Perkins and Olivia Bargstadt, of Creston elementary, middle and high schools, competed in district basketball skills Jan. 24 at Creston Middle School. They will compete in the state competition March 14 in Iowa City. Other teammates include Kayla Bendt, Dallis Perkins, Michael Taylor and Katrina Gogle.
• Creston FFA students received fourth place in oral reasons and ninth place overall at Iowa Beef Expo.
• FFA members who received Iowa FFA degrees include Maria Mostek, Darrian FIscher, Rebecca Watson, Emily Gravlin, Caitlin McIlravy, Gracie Russell, Zach Hoffman and Wyatt Thompson. Proficiency awards advancing to state were Brooke Thelen with a first gold at districts in equine science and Tyler Waddingham with a second gold at districts in small animal care. Madison Skarda received a bronze at districts in beef production.