'A great opportunity': Wynford will offer associate's degree program through Marion Tech

A new partnership between Wynford High School and Marion Technical College will allow students to earn an associate's degree before graduation.

While the school has had College Credit Plus course offerings for several years, this program will be the school's first dedicated early college academy model, Wynford Superintendent Forrest Trisler said. It significantly increases the number of credit hours students can earn before graduation.

"Really this program, it's early college access for everyone, whether it's a student that their parents pretty much have an expectation that they're going to go to a four-year school and then into a master's degree to be a doctor or a lawyer or something like that, to the student that maybe the family isn't sure about college and 'Hey, let's start and see how you do,'" Trisler said. "It's access and on-ramps basically college for everyone."

The first-year superintendent said Wynford's new program addresses a goal he developed for the district as he was interviewing for his job and meeting with school board members individually.

"To to a person, consistently across the five board members, one of their hopes and dreams for the district was CCP, College Credit Plus, a great opportunity for our kids," Trisler said. "We have a start. How do we expand and give our kids the best options that we can? And so that all came down to partnership, looking at providers, trying to kind of standardize."

Dawson Pelter, a Wynford High School sophomore, is one of the students planning to participate in the program, which he called a "great opportunity."

"It's great," he said. "I mean, all the different classes that you can take and cover college and high school credit at the same time — it's just a no brainer in my opinion. I'm hoping to get an associate's degree, so then I'll have a couple years of college out of the way. The same money."

After graduation, he plans to complete undergraduate and master's degrees in a technology field, he said.

"Recently I've been looking at cyber security because it's got a lot of opportunities in that field," Dawson said. "So I'm pretty excited about that."

District and college developed a partnership

Wynford will be the third district — but the first in Crawford County — offering a full associate's degree program through Marion Tech. Galion also offers an early college academy.

Four teachers on Wynford's staff are certified to teach College Credit Plus courses, but Marion Tech has been providing a CCP English teacher for the last two years.

School officials started meeting with Callum Morris and Ellie Hess, the director and assistant director of College Credit Plus programming for Marion Technical College, about developing a partnership, Trisler said.

"We've been using multiple providers and kids still can go different places," he said. "But it really made sense, basically, to look at this programmatically, and come up with what we could do to provide our kids an opportunity."

Since college students typically earn about 15 credit hours a semester, he was hoping to be able to offer Wynford students the opportunity to earn 24 and 30 credit hours before graduation. But the Marion Tech representatives, working with Shelli Ashley, the Wynford High School school counselor, suggested something more: an associate's degree pathway.

"This is a pretty awesome thing that we can do for kids and families with a great partner like MTC," Trisler said.

Students can complete degrees without leaving Wynford campus

All of the coursework is completed at Wynford High School, Ashley stressed.

"One of the classes is online for sure, but we build in time during the day that the kids have to work on the online course, so they are still housed here and we kind of have the availability to keep an eye. Just a little bit," she said.

Being able to keep students at the school has positives for both the district and students, Morris explained.

Wynford is able to keep its strongest students on campus, where they can be advocates not only for the program, but for the importance of success is in school, Morris said. Students save money and get a head start on whatever their educational goals after high school might be.

"When we're talking about students' success, a lot of students from a CCP standpoint at times feel the struggle of having to go to a college campus to take CCP, or online, but then also still figure out how they can be a high school student, whether that's sports, band. They might have a part- time job," he said. "They might come from a single family household, so they have to be home so they're there when brother, sister, gets off the bus cause mum's at work or dad's at work. So this hopefully will help with a lot of those different situations that that families find themselves in."

Many of the CCP classes "hit two birds with one stone," also fulfilling high school graduation requirements, Morris explained. For example, one English composition class will earn credit hours toward the degree while also satisfying Wynford's graduation requirement.

It's not just giving students a jump-start on their education; it also can jump-start a career, he said.

"A lot of companies are looking for experience. Well, you can't have an education and experience at same time," Morris said. "So by doing this and getting students into the workforce, especially for those credentialing pieces, it's helping them advance quicker, not just from an education standpoint, but from a career field. The engineering courses, they have credentials within that first course that makes them employable immediately."

A 17-year-old can have the credentials needed to get a foot in the door with an employer while earning a degree, he said.

'A fantastic opportunity for the right individual'

"We're not just building this just to say, 'Hey, Wynford's got a degree platform,' it's more of how can this overlap with a lot of different areas of employment, education savings, double-majoring," Morris said. "So there's a lot of benefits from this, but the biggest piece is this program is there for the right student. Students that want to be dedicated, know what their long-term plans are."

Students have to be serious about the coursework, he said.

"The biggest thing is making sure that parents and students understand that this is a fantastic opportunity, but if it's not taken correctly and it's not taken with responsibility and maturity, it can have an adverse effect," he said. "College Credit Plus is a fantastic opportunity for the right individual, but if students fail, that cost then falls back on the student. So that's the other piece that parents and students have to be fully aware of. If my student is not ready because they want to play sports or they want to be in band or they have a job and that right now is more important than being able to take these college-based classes, they're still going to complete the high school. Don't get me wrong, but we need to make sure that students and parents fully understand that you're now a college student."

College coursework requires more outside research, he said. Because the courses also fulfill graduation requirements, they count toward the student's GPA, and that can affect class ranking.

"So they've got to make sure that they fully understand what they're about to embark on," Morris said. "If they want to see it through, they're gonna have fantastic success through it with that hard work and obviously reap the benefits in the long-term."

"But on the flip side of that as well, Wynford has a huge advantage because these classes are in-house with their high school teachers," Hess added. "These students are familiar with the classroom, they're in the same class as their peers instead of coming to campus, where they might be in a classroom full of adults. They have the resources available right here at the high school office: Obviously, they have the counseling office. I'm the adviser for Wynford, so stopping out, doing constant communication with the students, making sure they're on track with their grades, making sure they know their dates and deadlines."

Classes meet every day at Wynford, whereas at the college, it's usually two days a week, she said.

Approximately 15 sophomores are looking into participating in the program, Ashley said.

"Obviously the juniors and seniors are a little behind the eight-ball, but there are some juniors that are taking some summer courses to make it happen on their end," she said.

Credit hours earned are transferable

"I think the one of the cool things about it is that it's tailored to the student," Ashley said.

She and Hess have been meeting with students as they register for classes and looking at what pathway each might be planning to pursue. The degree program requires elective pieces, and that allows students to start taking courses in their field of interest, she said. For example, a student interested in studying business might take an introductory business course as an elective. Such classes are completed online.

"It not only gives the kids the ability to get a degree, it also gives the kids the ability to figure out what they want to do," Ashley said. "If they take an intro to business course they're like, 'Yeah, this isn't for me,' they know that early and not wasting a year of their college money doing it."

Ashley said CCP students' schedules include mandatory study hall time.

"Because sometimes kids that are high-achieving are just cramming and everything they can and don't give themselves that study time," she said. "So we just didn't give them a choice."

Another key element is that the credits earned are transferable, Hess said.

"So if students pick a four-year or two-year public school in Ohio, the credits will transfer with them," she said. "If they go out of state or go private, it can be selective, but I always tell students to start reaching out to the college that they think they're going to attend and we start working on a transfer piece toward their senior year ... putting those pieces together and making sure that their classes are going where they need them to go. So they do get to do a lot of exploration within those electives and it still counts towards the associate's degree."

Because Marion Tech has its graduation ceremonies in early May, students will be able to complete the associate's degree program before graduation, Hess said. They'll be able to choose between an associate's of arts or science degree, depending on how many math classes they take.

Students participating in the program won't be the first to graduate from Wynford with an associate's degree in hand, noted Julie Miller, Wynford High School principal. In recent years, the district has usually had between one and three students do so.

"I look for that number to substantially increase now that this is a program that's offered right here at Wynford," she said.

ggoble@gannett.com

419-559-7263

This article originally appeared on Bucyrus Telegraph-Forum: Wynford will partner with Marion Tech for associate's degree program