Two Updates of Interest for SPS Parents
Update:
Here's the communications from the district website on "Guidance on SPS Middle School Students Taking High School Courses."
end of update
Here’s what made this easier for her: a summer expansion of Running Start, the 35-year-old program that allows high school students to take courses in community colleges and get both high school and college credit. Now, kids can go to community college during summer break tuition-free.
Last year, the first year it was widely available, more than 7,000 Washington high school students took advantage of summer Running Start. That flexibility is helping students shave years off the time it takes to earn a bachelor’s degree, or be career-ready for technical fields when they graduate from high school.
The biggest challenge? Spreading the word.
“Running Start has been proven successful over and over again,” said state Rep. Dave Paul, D-Oak Harbor. But it’s “disproportionately used by middle-class families that know about the program. The data for underrepresented groups is not nearly as strong — they just don’t know about it.”
The history I know about Running Start in SPS is SPS does NOT like it because it takes kids (and their money) out of the district when they attend those classes. I would hope the district could do better for the summer classes. I have not seen any notices about this at the district's website.
With summer Running Start, that tuition is waived. There’s a fee for most courses that runs about $100, depending on the course, although low-income students may be able to get those fees waived, too.
Under the change in the law, juniors and seniors can now take up to 63 community college credits per year, up from 45 credits annually.
In Edmonds, students are using summer Running Start to fulfill some of the requirements for high school graduation — English 101 fulfills the English requirement, for example, and Political Science 202 takes care of the civics requirement, Colyn said.
Colleges say completing high school requirements over the summer quarter gives students more wiggle room during the school year.
The second item is that apparently HC-identified kids' parents received an email about their students being able to take a higher level math in 6th grade.
" offering online math 6 this summer for an HC student rising from the neighborhood elementary to the HCC middle school so a student can take compacted 7/8 math this fall in 6th grade and catch up to the HC cohort for Algebra 1 in 7th grade."
The email came from new Highly Capable director, Paula Montgomery.
Naturally, this is great news. But the downsides are:
- This coming rather late in the school year after people have made school choices.
- Unclear whether it is only for HC students going to so-called cohort schools.
- What about other kids who may not be HC-Identified but have good math skills?
Plus, the Times is looking for input from parents:
The Seattle Times would like to hear from parents and guardians in the Seattle area about their experiences enrolling in summer child care and how they address the cost and availability issues.
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