Program mixes high school and college
High school students don’t have to graduate before they can take college classes.
With concurrent enrollment, students can earn college credits during their junior and senior years of high school, said Carol Worth, assistant principal of Capitol Hill High School.
Concurrent enrollment has students taking some college courses at OCCC, as well as other area colleges, while still in high school.
Participating students can take college-level courses such as math, English and government. Students must maintain a 3.0 grade point average for seniors or earn a composite score of 19 on the ACT.
The program began at Capitol Hill High school then expanded to Northeast Academy, in the Oklahoma City Public School system.
Brian Staples, Northeast Academy principal, said he first introduced the program at Capitol Hill, before he moved to Northeast Academy.
Concurrent college enrollment was slow to start with just a small number of students participating, but it quickly caught on.
There are now more than 100 high school seniors between the two schools.
Northeast Academy will graduate 85 high school seniors with college credits, Staples said.
Worth said she hopes to graduate 12 seniors with college credits from the program at Capitol Hill High School. She said she receives strong support from the parents for the program.
Capitol Hill has one room dedicated to college classes, said J.P. Johnson, director of Early College Awareness, Currently, she said, 13 OCCC professors alternate between Northeast and Capitol Hill.
Johnson said Southeast, Grant, and Santa Fe South high schools are the latest Oklahoma City schools to join the concurrent college enrollment program.
Some students will continue to finish their degrees at OCCC while some will attend a university, Johnson said.
She said she would like to see college graduation results comparing concurrent enrollment students who went on to attend a university after high school graduation versus those who attend a community college following graduation.
Staples said a number of sources are available for students needing help paying for college after high school.
They include the Clara Luper scholarship, Gates Millennium scholarship, federal financial aid, and the OKC-Go program, at OCCC, which gives 12 hours of free tuition to Oklahoma City public school graduates.
High school juniors wishing to take college classes must have a 3.5 GPA along with at least a 21 ACT score, Johnson said.
For more information, contact Johnson at 405-682-7533 or jpjohnson@occc.edu.
