High school students seeking dual credit courses through Parkland College may see additional fees at their high school beginning in the fall of 2021.
Parkland has not passed on fees associated with dual enrollment to local school districts in years past. But with upcoming changes, Parkland has decided to charge school districts part of the enrollment fee for students in dual credit courses.
Local boards discussed the impact that might have on their district and families this week.
Mahomet-Seymour proposed charging students enrolled in Chemistry 2 $55 and Physics $137 to take the course. The board did not approve the charge, voting the measure down 3-3.
The St. Joseph-Ogden CHSD 305 passed the Parkland Dual Credit Agreement and the Parkland Dual Credit cost Monday night, though.
“That cost for taking the course will be between 8% and 12% of the cost it would be if they were to take the course at Parkland,” Superintendent Brian Brooks said. “For instance, a four-hour course that is labeled a ‘Priority Course’ at Parkland would cost $684 in tuition to take the course on your own out at Parkland. It will only cost our students $54.72 to take it here.”
St. Joseph-Ogden, like Mahomet, said that the district would cover the fees for students on free-and-reduced lunch programs.
The Heritage School Board has not met on the topic yet, but Superintendent Tom Davis said that “depending on state funding status, we would pass on the new Parkland charges in our student fees paid at the start of the school year at registration like we do for driver ed and lab courses etc with course fees.”
Davis added that if the pandemic continues, some of the fees for Parkland Dual Credit could be covered with stimulus money, but under normal circumstances, with uncertainty of state funding, it would be difficult for the district to cover those fees.
Heritage offers Dual Credit English and first-year experience through Parkland.
Local school districts also partner with Parkland for Early College and Career Academy (ECCA) programming. Students get a jump start on the Parkland campus, studying different trades, such as those within the health profession, firefighting, Industrial Technology or Computer Programming.
Dual credit, though, is offered on the high school campus, with a school district staff member teaching the course to students who have enrolled in Parkland College.
Districts say that enrollment in dual credit and ECCA courses have increased in recent years.
And because of the unknowns, districts like Mahomet-Seymour did not believe that they could commit to covering the fees indefinitely.
For example, Mahomet-Seymour is working with Parkland to increase their dual credit offerings.
“They’re getting college credit for it at a very nominal cost,” Director of Instruction Nicole Rummel said.
The district also pointed out that students who take AP courses have to pay for their AP test in order to have the potential of getting that college credit.
But board member Colleen Schultz said that students can enroll in AP courses, getting the rigor of the course without being required to take the AP test. She also said that some families within the district, even those who are not on free or reduced lunch, would struggle to pay the fee associated with the dual credit course.
“I have difficulty thinking that we’re going to offer classes where we tell students, you have to pay extra to take a class,” Schultz said. “It’s going to incentivize some students to not take those classes. Those are classes that I don’t think we want to incentivize people not to take.”
She added that at the college level, many incoming freshmen are able to take placement tests for free in order to bypass some of the early course requirements.
Schultz added that she believes the fees outside of the book and technology fee for school registration or activity registration can be burdensome on families.
“I guess the fact that this is for this upcoming year, less than probably $6,000, I don’t feel the need (to chrage families)…Maybe if you expand it and there’s 15 sections of each class, this might be a different story. But to say, we’re going to pay less than $6,000; this is a quarter of what we spent on tents this year.
“I’m really uncomfortable passing along these fees when there’s lots of other expenses we incur to teach students things, that we don’t pass along to the students.”
M-S Board member Max McComb said that students would receive a “really inexpensive college credit” for taking the course through dual credit.
M-S Board member Merle Giles said that the subsidy for the students would be for Mahomet-Seymour to offer the course, but not to absorb the cost of the fee.
“Our responsibility as a public education system pre-K through 12, is to educate students,” board member Lori Larson added. “When we’re offering them above and beyond the curriculum that they’re getting credit for at a college or university, there should be a fee for that. They are going to use that towards their diploma. And so, I feel that that is very fair, it’s not an exorbitant amount of money.”
Schultz said that she would like the board to spend a meeting discussing all the fees associated with the education Mahomet-Seymour students are getting prior to voting for the agreement.
“The discussion that I’m interested in having is what we do when there are families who are struggling financially, whether they are qualifying for free and reduced lunch or not,” Schultz said. “I’ve heard many stories of families who say, ‘I’m on reduced lunch, and need help with my fees, but there’s no help, and people we’ve talked about in previous meetings who would like to participate in extracurricular activities, but the fees are so large that they can’t do that.
“What is it that we’re charging students for in all the different ways that we do this, and what we might do. A lot of us might say, ‘Well, $137 isn’t very much money; it’s a kind of a trivial fee.’ But for a lot of families $137 is a lot of money. And it’s breaking the budget amount of money.”
Director of Instruction Nicole Rummel said that the Mahomet-Seymour board would hear about this fee increase again in February.
