Community R-6 looks at restructuring credits for HCC programs

Melanie Utterback.jpg
Community R-6 High School Science Teacher Melanie Utterback brought some sweet updates to the board of education at its Dec. 17 meeting. While presenting her report on “Exploring the World of Utterback,” she showed off the holiday cookies that her class made and left them for board members to enjoy. [Sky Strauss]

By Sky Strauss
Staff Writer

A student in the cosmetology program at Hart Career Center will spend two years using math, science and English language arts skills while pursuing a career that interests them, but they may only receive practical arts credits on their high school transcripts.

At the Dec. 17 Community R-6 Board of Education meeting, High School Principal Bob Davies presented an opportunity to explore changes that can be made to the applied credits so they reflect the relevance of what students are learning in the course and encourage attendance.

After completing two full years of an applicable Hart Career Center program, students at Community earn six practical arts credits and can earn one applied credit in mathematics, but only if they need it to fulfill graduation requirements.

The proposed changes aim to make some of those practical arts credits for career and technical courses taken at HCC into core credits.

Currently, four seniors and eight juniors at Community attend HCC for approximately three hours per day in addition to Monday sessions.

And the decision to offer only one math credit to those who need it left Davies scratching his head.

“This is something that everybody kind of does, but I’m not sure why,” he said.

If the curriculums for the courses offered at HCC align with the Missouri Learning Standards and what Community R-6 expects from its students, Davies said it may be appropriate to award not only the existing math credit, but also an applied science and/or English language arts credit.

The programs under review will be automotive, computer science, construction technology, cosmetology, computer support and networking, diesel mechanics, graphic arts, project lead the way, welding, and the one-year health science program.

Davies said, for example, a cosmetology student could earn three practical arts credits, the existing mathematics credit, one science credit and one English credit.

Earning the credits necessary for graduation during their time at HCC could also afford students more time to “flex” and attend on-the-job training or work.

“I do have some students that this would help,” Davies said.

Superintendent Chad Harter was fully in favor of the proposal.

“We want to make sure they have adequate rigor to learn and to leave with skills to be productive whenever they go out and try to support their families,” Harter said. “We want to make sure that the material that they have is relevant to them and what they are choosing for their career path, and we want to make sure that they gain relationships while they are here that will benefit them moving forward.”

At the meeting, Davies asked the board for permission to research his idea further, starting with looking at the curriculums at the career center and reaching out to area schools to see what they offer.

Provided the curricula meet state standards, the decision for how and where the credits are applied will be left up to the Board of Education, but Davies said that will have to be decided before the students sign up for classes for transparency.

“It’s going to be black and white,” he said “It’s going to be right there and easy to see what the credit is used for. No more games, and then there’s no downside because you’re not getting extra credits.”

Board member Scott Sims raised the concerns that offering these credits could take students out of Community classrooms and make the class sizes smaller, but Harter didn’t see that as a problem.

“It could be a very good thing,” Harter said. “Now, instead of having 12 kids in that class, we have 10 that really want to be in that class. That feeds on itself too and presents a culture within a classroom, or a teacher can go further than that teacher has gone before.”

The board decided to allow Davies to continue with his research and bring his proposal back before the board with a clearer vision on which credits will apply to each course at a later date.

“Kids will take this and run with it,” Davies said. “They’ll be more motivated to stay in school, more motivated to finish and more motivated to keep doing things.”