Concurrent Community College

Policy

IEM Charter Schools encourage capable high school students to enroll in community college courses when it is deemed appropriate by the parent and the Educational Specialist, and allowable by the college policies. Students desiring entrance to a UC should be sure to read about the university requirements found in the guidance section of the school's website. All community colleges have posted the Intersegmental General Education Transfer Curriculum (IGETC) on their websites to aid students in selecting the appropriate, transferable courses.

Procedure

The parent (not your ES) is responsible for enrolling the student by contacting the college enrollment office. The parents must identify the student as being currently enrolled in a public high school. Each community college is able to set its own standards for admittance --- such as a minimum age, demonstrated ability, or professor approval. Colleges may require placement testing and/or orientation sessions. They may also require the ES to sign letters of recommendation and require official transcripts before admitting the high school student. It is important for parents to start this process early to meet application and enrollment deadlines.

All community colleges’ admission requirements include official approval from the student’s high school. In general, colleges provide some type of concurrent enrollment form that must be signed by the school’s guidance counselor &/or principal (not the ES). These signatures provide verification that the student meets the requirements for a high school student to attend that community college. They do not guarantee that the college will enroll the student in the requested courses, but is just one step in the enrollment process. When submitting the college’s form to our guidance department, it is important that it be accompanied by our Pre Concurrent Enrollment form http://www.ieminc.org/genericforms/conenrollmentiem.pdf .

Form Information

The Pre Concurrent Enrollment form provides the ES’s approval and verification that the parent understands the responsibilities and requirements of having their student concurrently enrolled in college courses. It also provides contact information --- including to whom/ where the processed form should be faxed &/or mailed. Please note: both forms must be fully completed or the request for concurrent enrollment cannot be processed in a timely manner. Our guidance department must be provided adequate time to process the request for concurrent enrollment paperwork. Incomplete paperwork and last minute submissions may result in the student’s paperwork not being processed before the college’s deadline for enrollment. Note: This paperwork is required whether or not the coursework will be included in the student’s learning record; for every one of our enrolled High School students who are also attending a college course.

ES Webfiles Information

A box is available on each high school student’s report card in the ES Webfiles. Dates entered into that area by the guidance department will indicate that the student’s completed concurrent enrollment paperwork has been received and processed. A red “CC form needed” message indicates that a student’s concurrent enrollment paperwork has not yet been received/ processed by the guidance department. Note: Not all student’s may be flagged as needing this by the database, please review this info yourself to see that the students you know are attending college courses have a form entered.

Attendance Credit

The ES must know the number of college credits an IEM Charter School student is earning at a community college. The number of credits the student is taking at a community college may affect the attendance the IEM Charter School can claim, or exclude enrollment with us.

· If an IEM Charter School student is enrolled in 25 credits or more in the charter school the charter school can claim full attendance.

· If a student is taking community college classes, and is not attempting to earn a minimum of 20 credits (not counting any college credits) in the charter school, then only half attendance credit can be claimed. Consult your advisor.

· If a student is taking community college classes, and is not attempting to earn a minimum of 10 credits (not counting any college credits) in an IEM school, then the ES should contact their advisor immediately. 

For those instances above when the ES must claim half attendance credit, the ES must ensure half attendance credit is marked on the attendance roll sheet. The parent will alternate X’s and O’s on the roll sheet.

Writing the Learning Record

It is not mandatory that classes taken at the community college be documented on the learning record if the student is taking at least 25 credits not counting their college courses. College courses that must be documented in learning records include those that are being used for a-g (in place of a school-approved a-g course syllabus) &/or for fulfilling HQT requirements. The parent should be advised to consult with the university admissions office where the student intends to enroll after graduation to determine whether to place the college classes on the high school transcript. Some universities may not accept transfer community college credits that have also been used for high school graduation credit. The ES still must know how many credits the student is earning at college since the Charter School is responsible for tracking attendance credit and reporting accurate attendance information. Note: No grades or credits may be assigned for any course not listed on the learning record. Have this discussion at the beginning of each semester, not at the end!

Writing learning records for a student attending college classes follows the same general guidelines for writing any other high school learning record:

• Learning records will include descriptions of the major objectives covered and activities used within each assignment period.
• Means of student assessment/ evaluation must be included for each learning period.
• The documentation of learning should include content of what is learned but not where it is learned (except for a-g or HQT documentation purposes).
• Specific textbook titles or chapter numbers may be mentioned but are not mandatory.
• The amount of time &/or the dates that learning took place for any activity do not need to be stated.
• Any references to religious content must be in the context of the study of world religion.
• A learning record can include nontraditional learning as well as traditional.
• A properly written learning record should provide a record of student progress which may be used to support the life goals of that student.
• The information presented on the learning record should be organized and professionally presented.

LR Examples

Computer Programming 1B: Julio listened to lectures, took notes, and completed lab assignments on the following topics: I/O Streams as an Introduction to Objects and Classes- streams and basic file I/O, tools for stream I/O, character I/O, inheritance among stream classes; Defining Classes and Abstract Data Types- structures, classes, abstract data types, classes to produce ADTs, alternative implementation of a class. He was pleased to earn 86% on his midterm.

a-g Art 1B: Madeline listened to lectures, read her text, viewed other students' samples, and created her own samples modeling the style of the following artists: Tiffany, Rouault, Kollwitz and Barlach. She made a mosaic tree out of tiles, created a stained 'glass' flower out of tissue paper, drew a sketch of a face using boxes for dimensions, and made an action scene with balloon people. Assessment was through peer review and oral discussion with the student.

Physics (College PHS148): Brian listened to lectures, took notes, read chapters 3 to 6 in the textbook, answered all written comprehension and vocabulary questions, performed the accompanying labs and completed all lab sheets, began preparing for the mid-term project, and took chapter tests on the following topics: Sound- the nature of sound waves, loudness, pitch, speed of sound, boundary effects; Music- consonance, overtones, musical instruments. Labs conducted were on “the property of waves” and “vibrating strings”. Student was assessed on the lab sheets, written work, and oral assessments.

Assigning Credits

IEM Charter Schools allow students to receive credit for a high school course and to keep the college credits. (Note: The parent/student should check with their selected colleges of choice to see how they will view this and how it will fit into their future college plans.) The college evaluates and assigns the college credits that are listed on their official college transcript. The ES documents and evaluates the learning that takes place in the college course and then assigns appropriate high school credit under a similar high school class name that matches the CA standards. Note: The name of the high school class may or may not be the same name as the college class. The number of high school credits earned depends on the content of the class and what learning took place. There is no specific formula. The ES must use their professional judgment as for any high school course and consult their ES advisor for help. (Be sure to include the name of the college and the name of the course/course number taken).

Examples of College classes to HS classes:

· PE 2a- Student enrolled in weight training and attends class three times a week performing specific class exercises. HS Credit evaluation using time as the guideline: 15 hours = 1 credit. Compare this to the PE2a standards to see what portion of the course can be met by this and what else the student needs to complete at home to earn the full 5 credits.

· A-g Spanish 1a— Student enrolled in Spanish 1 class that meets 1 day a week for 3 hours. ES compares the CA standards and our a-g course syllabus to the college Spanish class syllabus to determine credits earned and standards needing to be supplemented outside of this course. In this case, the high school student covered one full semester of our CA standards and the a-g syllabus. ES also enrolled the student in a-g Spanish 1b and awarded 5 credits in each course.

If you are unsure what the course entails, get a copy of the course syllabus and review the textbook to help judge the content as you evaluate the student's work. The ES Advisor can also help the ES through the process of evaluating the high school credit value of a college course. Students may not receive more than 10 credits per any one complete course name being used toward 1 body of CA state standards; 5 credits for the "A" semester and 5 credits for semester "B". Extra work done in a course that does not meet any of our standards is just extra work done in a course, which we allow, and does not count towards extra credits towards graduation.

Report Cards

· The ES will assign a high school course title and credits, not the college. Select one of our HS course titles that closely matches the college course’s content to our state standards.

· Always select the a-g course title if your school has that course UC approved (check doorways for the latest approvals that may not yet be posted on our school website). Note: Enter nothing in the a-g course type and detail fields at the far right of the report card line when you use the a-g course title.

· For ESEA Teacher of Record, always select “1 – HQT is Certified” for a core course if you have your ESEA certification in that area . “0 – N/A” should be selected for non-core courses (Note: All a-g courses are considered core). Only select “4 - Community College” if you do not have a certification in that area.

· If the course is being used to address a-g requirements for a course that the school does not yet have approved by the UC system (check doorways!), and it has been determined that the college course is “UC/CSU transferable” (check the college course catalog or schedule for verification), the a-g Type will be “College Course” and for the a-g Detail you will enter the college’s course title (such as ECON305).

· The ES translates the college credits into an appropriate amount high school credits. The ES should consult with their advisor to determine what the number of credits may be, and keep in mind the Maximum number of Carnegie Units allowed. If the number of credits assigned to the course exceeds 5, the course entries would be a semester A and B course –- as in a block format. For example a college biology course may be determined to be equivalent to a year’s high school course. In that case the report card course entry would be a-g Biology 1A for 5 credits and a-g Biology 1B for 5 credits – for a total of 10 a-g Biology credits.

Summer School Courses
Summer School courses taken at a community college can be placed on the enrolled student’s high school transcript, if the student was enrolled with our school both immediately preceding and immediately following the summer session. The parent/adult student should request that an official college transcript be sent to the School Placerville office, and the courses will be reviewed by the Guidance Counselor. Students that have their college summer school courses added in this manner for summer school, do not have the information recorded in their learning record nor does the ES add a course title and credits to the student’s report card. Note: Concurrent enrollment in the charter school and a community college is not allowed during summer school. Students may be enrolled at the charter school if summer school is being offered or at the community college, but never both.

College Tuition

IEM charter schools cannot pay for community college courses although many community colleges will waive the tuition for high school students. Check with the college you are interested in attending for their requirements.

College Books

College bookstores are treated the same as any other vendor. Approach your local community college bookstore and ask if they will become a vendor, then follow the established new vendor request procedure.

If the college bookstore is not a vendor, the book may have to be ordered directly from the publisher. Ask parents to obtain the book list as soon after enrolling as possible. Parents should get the complete book name, ISBN, price, and publisher’s name. Books may also be ordered by the ISBN from any school approved vendor, although this option may take extra time. Often the college library has books that may be used until arrival of those ordered from our vendors. Parents may also choose to spend their personal funds to purchase the books, but no reimbursement will be given.