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Community Colleges and Area High Schools:

Partnerships for Student Success

by Rick Moehring, President
Faculty Association, Johnson County Community College

Johnson County has a great reputation for excellent public schools and it is upon that countywide commitment to excellence that Johnson County Community College (JCCC) has built a reputation of its own.

JCCC, through partnerships designed to share educational resources and opportunities with its area high schools, seeks to enhance the education of the children within its county. JCCC's "Keeping Options Open" (KOO) program was established to address the many goals it has for working with the county's high schools.

http://web.jccc.net/academic/outreach/index.htm

The four major areas of KOO are:

• Career and Life Planning
• Technical College Preparation
• College Now
• Quick Step

Career and Life Planning

Career and Life Planning is a program to deliver career development services to high school students and their parents. These opportunities begin in the high schools for sophomores, while juniors and seniors attend workshops at JCCC. In the last three years more than 3,600 students and parents have benefited from these services.

Technical College Preparation

Technical College Preparation is a program for career preparation and work force development. Students are offered a variety of programs informing them of their options within technical career fields. It is then possible for them to begin their studies in high school and make the transition to college to complete their training. A series of course work articulation plans have been developed between the high schools and JCCC. Some of these plans offer college credit for skills learned in high school, while others simply suggest a sequence of high school courses that will lead into a college degree or certificate program. High school teachers and counselors and JCCC faculty are also offered training to enhance their ability to provide technical education and career guidance.

College Now

College Now is an opportunity for a student in an advanced class to receive college credit for a course while enrolled in high school. This program, often attracting more than 2,000 students per semester, is an excellent way for students to earn college credit. Curriculum coordination between the faculty of the college and the teachers at the high schools keep this program a great educational value for students. There are 250 high school teachers participating with JCCC in College Now.

Quick Step

Another way for students to earn college credit while in high school is to enroll at JCCC as Quick Step students. These students request release time from their high schools and then sign up in regularly scheduled classes at JCCC. Quick Step is designed for juniors and seniors, but academically gifted students with a current IEP are eligible at any age. Students from thirty-five different high schools attend JCCC through the Quick Step program.

High-ability high school students often need enhanced educational experiences to keep them challenged. Johnson County high schools have a very good system of advanced placement classes, academic and skills competitions and Quest programming to keep their students' attention on learning. Many of their most insatiable learners need additional challenges and use the College Now and Quick Step programs to earn college credit.

The many partners in the Keeping Options Open programs have achieved a great deal for students in our county. JCCC's Faculty Association may be able to play a part in the partnerships with area high schools. Previously, JCCC was in a UniServ with several districts from different counties. With the redistricting that was recently announced, JCCC's Faculty Association is paired with Blue Valley to form a UniServ they have called Alliance.

Many of the programs described above need faculty-to-faculty partnerships to make them flourish. One goal for this first year of the new UniServ is to investigate additional opportunities to work together. So, check back in a year or so and see the ways that the faculty in the new "Alliance" of JCCC and the Blue Valley school district has impacted their respective abilities to provide quality education to the students in the county they share.