Category: Dual Credit Equity

By Aseela Galeeb 

Introduction 

Equity policies in school districts are designed to make sure that all students have equal access to educational opportunities. These policies aim to address racial, socioeconomic, or other disparities, so that all students have the support they need. In this article, we will dive into the process of policymaking in Washington school districts and explore how policies are advocated for and instituted. 

Who is in Charge of Equity Policies?

The chain of command when it comes to school districts may be confusing to the public, because there are so many key actors and groups. The Washington Office for the Superintendent of Public Instruction, or OSPI, explains on their website, “OSPI does not have authority over school operation; this is the direct responsibility of the school district. OSPI provides support and information.” 

Essentially, principals manage individual schools, with guidance from the school board, which is headed by a superintendent. The school board oversees districts at the local level, while OSPI supports those districts by sharing policies, research, and communication tools. At each of these levels, district staff are instrumental in supporting students and providing services. 

A school board, as mentioned above, is the entity responsible for setting district policies. On the Washington State Legislature website, it states that “each common school district board of directors shall be vested with the final responsibility for the setting of policies ensuring quality in the content and extent of its educational program and that such program provide students with the opportunity to achieve those skills”.

The Role of Students

Many school boards have student representative positions. For example, Lake Washington School District has two positions on their board for students. Taran Srinivasan was a previous LWSD student representative, and I reached out to him to ask about the policy process within the board, as well as his role. 

“Policies are usually initiated by different stakeholder groups that recognize potential problems through research or collecting data,” Taran explained. “These stakeholders could be students, admin, board members, the superintendent, or outside groups.” 

If the policies are strong enough, then a committee is created for it, made up of different members of the district community. These members will discuss the policy and send their ideas to the board. The board will hold a study session on the committee’s ideas and formulate their relevance and discuss, or add to the policy. “If all goes well, then it moves to the public board meeting where they vote on it.” 

When I asked Taran about what his position entailed, he said, “My role as a student representative was to gauge the impact of the policy on students and give my input on it during the study session and board meetings.” Though the students in this role do not get a vote on the board, their input and opinions are incorporated into the overall process. 

Conclusion

If you’re a student interested in policymaking within your school district, there are many ways for you to get involved. Aside from applying to be a student representative, you can also join and form advocacy groups at your school, organize awareness campaigns, arrange petitions, attend school board meetings, and educate yourself on policy issues in your district. 

Students play a crucial role in advocating for policies, especially when it comes to equity policies, which are essential for creating a fair educational environment. 

Aseela Galeeb is a graduate of the Lake Washington School District and is an incoming first year college student obtaining two degrees in Policy and Communications. She is a Guest Contributor for Stand WA.

By Aseela Galeeb 

Imagine you’re a high school student, curious about your academic options as you begin the college process. Or, perhaps you’re a parent trying to help your child take advantage of the educational opportunities available to them. You’ve heard about dual credit programs and you know they can be a game-changer, so you begin searching on your school district’s website to find out more. 

But what if, after searching through endless links and PDFs, you come up empty-handed? That’s not just frustrating and confusing, but it can actually limit a student’s access to these programs. 

With this in mind, I decided to explore the dual credit equity information available on the second and third largest school districts in Washington State: Lake Washington School District-which serves cities east of Seattle such as Redmond, Kirkland, and Sammamish- and Spokane Public Schools- which serves the city of Spokane and the surrounding county. The opposing locations of these districts, as well as other factors discussed later, led to an interesting comparative study. 

By contrasting how these districts present educational resources online, I wanted to see how accessible this information really was. 

Lake Washington School District (LWSD)

In all honesty, the LWSD website was somewhat unfamiliar to me, even though I had recently graduated from the district. As with all internet searches, it’s best to go in with a goal, to avoid falling down a rabbit hole. My guiding question was about the district’s equity policy- does it include anything about equitable access to dual credit programs?

I clicked around for some time before finding what I needed. For example, the Equity & Family Engagement page led me to an “Equity Team Annual Report” PDF, which discussed anti-racism lessons, equity modules for teachers, and student affinity groups, but didn’t cover dual credit programs. The list of “More Ways to Graduation” featured a standard overview of programs and requirements, but had no mention of equitable access. I sifted through PDFs like “Academic Success Annual Report” and “LWSD Eligibility Changes”, as well as the 2019 Strategic Plan, where one of the district’s goals was to “increase dual credit course offerings”, but did not expand upon the point. 

Taking a different approach, I began filtering through the administrative policies, which had plenty of statements about student well-being, leadership organization, and course adoption procedures, but my goal was still out of sight. Even if this policy exists somewhere, in the depths of the LWSD website, if it isn’t prominently posted and easy to find, it’s almost as though it doesn’t exist at all. 

Spokane Public Schools

The Spokane Public School district’s Academic Acceleration policy was much easier to find. Within three clicks, I had on my screen a PDF which clearly stated a recognition of the importance of access to dual credit programs, as well as an automatic enrollment clause (a step that ensures students are placed in the next most advanced course, rather than opting in to it).

In comparing these two school districts, it becomes clear that there is a significant difference in the accessibility of information about dual credit programs. While LWSD’s website required extensive searching that led to limited results, Spokane Public Schools provided easily accessible information.

What are some reasons for this sharp contrast? In considering this question, I began with the demographics of each district. Both have about 29-30,000 students enrolled, but according to US News and World Report (a source that is popular for school comparisons and rankings), 6.3% of LWSD’s students come from an economically disadvantaged background, compared to 46% of Spokane’s students. As EducationWeek explains in this article discussing equity gaps in parental involvement in school, “there are still some important gaps between more and less advantaged communities when it comes to tech, including access to devices and reliable connectivity. What’s more, wealthier parents may be more likely to work a schedule that allows them to spend time helping their children”. While the exact reason for the difference in accessibility may be more complex, this stark divide between communities of varying levels of economic advantage must be highlighted in order to create changes. 

Key Takeaways

It is essential for school districts to prioritize the accessibility of information about equity in their services, because it plays an important role in supporting students and their families. By advocating for transparency online, we can ensure that all students can benefit from these programs.

Aseela Galeeb is a graduate of the Lake Washington School District and is an incoming first year college student obtaining two degrees in Policy and Communications. She is a Guest Contributor for Stand WA.

 If you are a high school student, recent high school grad, or if there is a student in your life who could be impacted by academic acceleration policies: do you know how to access dual credit in your system? Share your experience in the comments! 

By Aseela Galeeb 

If you’ve talked to a high school student recently, you may have heard them talk about their IB course, or an upcoming AP test. These programs, as well as Running Start, Career and Technical Education (CTE), Cambridge International (CI), and College in the High School, make up dual credit courses in Washington State. These programs allow students to earn credit for college during high school, which gives them a chance to experience the expectations of college-level coursework. 

For about a decade, these courses have been growing in the state, supported by legislation such as HB 1642, a 2013 bill establishing encouraging districts to adopt an academic acceleration policy that automatically enrolls in the next most rigorous level of advanced courses offered by the high school if they’ve met the state standard on the statewide exam.As well as HB 1599, a 2019 bill modifying high school graduation requirements to promote college readiness. 

However, for all the advances that have been made, there are still disparities among student demographics. To learn more about this, we interviewed several high school students and professionals working in the education field. The interviewees shed light on experiences within dual credit classes, as well as the inequities they have noticed. 

We began with the basics: Why do students take dual credit classes? On one hand, they offer many more opportunities than may exist within one school. Lilli Mccauley, a rising junior beginning full time Running Start this school year, wanted to join the program since middle school, and is hoping it will help her focus on a career she loves. Running Start is a program that allows high schoolers to enroll in college courses in community colleges and earn credit there. 

 “I think getting my prerequisites done in high school means I can just focus on what I want to do.”  At Lilli’s school, students must wait until junior year to take AP classes. “Since we have such a limited staff, they’re very high enrollment classes, and there aren’t enough opportunities. And the opportunities that come with Running Start are better.”

Other students take dual credit classes in order to prepare for their post-secondary plans. Airah Virani, a rising senior, takes AP and IB classes at her school. She says, “the way people advertised IB as good college prep made it seem more favorable.” Dual credit courses are one of the main ways that high school students can prepare for college. In fact, according to the U.S Department of Education’s WWC Intervention Report, students who take dual credit courses are more likely to graduate on time, and enroll in a post-secondary program. 

But, for all the proven benefits of dual credit courses, there are significant patterns of inequity within them. We talked to two professionals in the education field to gain more insight. 

Kristen Hengtgen, a senior policy analyst with The Education Trust, notes that “Dual credit is really unequal just across high schools, so depending on what district you’re in, you may have dozens of opportunities or four classes total.” Besides geographical inequalities, there are also financial barriers. Jeff Charbonneau, the principal of Zillah High School, says, “Last school year, we had U.S History offered as a College in the High School course for all of our sophomores. Even though we have about 120 sophomores, only 35 of them took the course for college credit, and it was directly because of the associated fees that went with it.” 

There are also concerning disparities within the demographics of students enrolled in dual credit. Kristen explained, “We certainly see a large inequity in access for students of color involved in dual credit classes. Whether the information isn’t being conveyed to these students, they’re getting a message that this class is not for them, they’re not being identified for these courses, or there’s some sort of financial barrer, we definitely see fewer students of color enrolling in and completing dual credit courses in multiple states.”  Airah pointed out the gender inequity in dual credit at her school. “We all have to take STEM courses, but not a lot of girls double in sciences or take higher level science courses like I did.” As Kristen puts it, “All of these benefits mean the inequities are so much worse, because [dual credit] can be a mechanism for helping increase access for our students.” 

But there’s good news: some of the barriers are being broken and allowing more students to access dual credit courses. For example, Zillah High School recently announced that students can earn an Associates of Arts, or A.A, degree during high school. When we asked Jeff about the changes at his school, he said, “The bills that were passed this last legislative session- the changes to College in the High School and the changes to Running Start- those are going to have a tremendous benefit.”

As a final statement, we asked the interviewees to give some parting remarks to students and professionals. “I would encourage students to look into what opportunities your school has,” says Kristen. “I want students to know they do belong, and even if there’s resistance and the class seems difficult, this class is for you.” Jeff added, “The work that needs to come next is the work on perception, and helping students to envision their futures.”

As our interviewees mentioned, dual credit courses provide opportunities for students across the nation. In WA, school districts, advocacy organizations, and state legislatures all have a duty to push for more equitable access.  Stand WA is continuing our focus removing barriers to dual credit – including student fees. Guided by research and students in our communities, we can ensure that young people can access and thrive in advanced courses.

In 2002, educators Scott Sattler and Tami Jackson set out with a vision that would dramatically change the culture of rural Bridgeport High School over the next two decades. At the time, Bridgeport was designated as one of the worst-performing districts in Washington state with some of the lowest student test scores. If they were going to find a new way forward, Tami and Scott believed that they must raise the bar for their students. So they began by offering their very first dual credit courses to any student who would take them. 

Bridgeport was years ahead of many Washington districts, adopting an expansive approach to dual credit classes before it became a focus of education policymakers. It wasn’t until 2013, after Federal Way and Tacoma School Districts school boards had adopted a policy known as Academic Acceleration, that more Washington districts began expanding access to dual credit through this automatic enrollment process. Bridgeport adopted their official Academic Acceleration policy that same year, but it only formalized what had been fundamental to Scott and Tami’s approach over the last decade. 

Those first years were not easy for Scott and Tami. Scott, now the district Superintendent, recalls the pushback he received from families about these courses: “I had a parent march into my office upset and yelling at me ‘how dare you have my kid enroll in college classes, you’re stealing her high school experience!’” But as parents witnessed the students’ enthusiasm for dual credit classes and the district was able to demonstrate how much money families were saving in college tuition, the pushback dissipated.

“That student [whose parent yelled at me] still took advantage of those opportunities and that same parent eventually came back and thanked me because she was already two years into college by the time she graduated,” said Scott.

Almost twenty years later, Tami looks back on that time and knows for certain that “we couldn’t get rid of the program if we wanted to.” Now it’s an integral part of the Bridgeport High School experience. Their upperclassmen continue the tradition every year when they visit middle schoolers and share reflections about their experiences taking college-level courses.

“Parents love the money being saved by earning college credits early, but it’s our kids who keep it going.” – Tami Jackson, BHS Principal

These days, over 75% of Bridgeport high school students – across all grades – are taking dual credit courses. Across Washington state the average is only 62% of students, putting Bridgeport above and beyond most schools. As a small, rural district with only 800 total students and the closest college campus 45 miles away, their high-rate of enrollment is even more impressive.

“Our kids don’t have to go anywhere to have access to these courses,” says Scott. “They get them right in their own building.” Bridgeport has made a habit of training their own teachers by supporting them in becoming part-time faculty at the closest community college for College in the High School courses or sending teachers to AP professional development programs when they’re available. “Being in a rural area, we attract teachers who are interested in living away from the hustle and bustle. That means that we have to train up our own,” according to Scott.

In 2011, Bridgeport was recognized as one of the top three high schools in the country during a competition led by the Obama White House. With a student population that is 90% low income and 45% English language learners, their graduation and college enrollment regularly exceed statewide averages. Ten years later, Bridgeport is still seeing results and is looking forward to more schools adopting their approach, starting with Academic Acceleration. 

“In our school, it was the kids who made it happen,” says Tami, who currently serves as the high school Principal. “They pushed the teachers to get certified to teach dual credit. Parents love the money being saved by earning college credits early, but it’s our kids who keep it going.”

As of September 2021, a majority of Washington school districts had adopted an Academic Acceleration policy as required by a state law passed in 2019 with the support of Stand for Children and education advocates across the state. Stand’s recently released report, Building Bridges to Dual Credit, lists all of those districts and includes links to their individual policies. The report serves as a celebration of the progress made so far and a reference point for the remaining districts that need to adopt a policy by the end of this school year.

If you have questions or would like support connecting your school district to Academic Acceleration resources, please email [email protected] and our team will be happy to help.