The opportunity to take dual enrollment high school classes that count for college credits can be hugely helpful for students. Why aren’t they more accessible? WSHU’s Ebong Udoma spoke with CT Mirror’s Jessika Harkay to discuss her article, “CT dual credit classes: A ‘huge equalizer’ that isn’t always available,” as part of the collaborative podcast Long Story Short. You can read her story here. WSHU: Hello, Jessika. Advanced Placement (AP) courses require a high school student to pass a standardized test at the end of the year to determine whether they qualify for college credit, but a dual enrollment program allows a student to gain college credits by taking a college class and being graded throughout the year. Educators say it gives students true mastery. How so, and why is that an advantage for first-generation and low-income students? JH: Yeah, I think the biggest difference compared to an AP course is that you’re taking a big test at the end of the year and have all of what you learned that whole year in one test. And that’s deciding whether you get that college credit or not. So when they say that a dual-enrollment course is a true mastery of content, it’s just because you’re going through a normal college class. You’re taking tests throughout the year, you’re doing quizzes, you’re writing essays, which is more natural to what’s actually happening in a college setting. Usually, we have finals in college, but that’s not what all of your grades and whether you get credit are going to depend on. So that ties into those low-income or first-generation students, that they’re getting exposed to a college setting early rather than having to depend on a test, and that’s whether you get that college credit or not. WSHU: So why isn’t it readily available at all high schools in Connecticut? JH: Yeah, UConn does a great job of trying to bring these to schools across Connecticut. Last year, or the year before, the governor issued a grant that allowed schools to expand these programs. But the biggest problem is that these programs depend on teachers. A teacher has to be certified with UConn specifically to be able to teach these, so they’re basically like associate professors at that point. So when you are having this high turnover of teachers leaving districts, or you have teachers who don’t have the capacity to go to UConn and get these other certifications, that’s where you start to see these gaps in accessibility in some schools. If you have teachers who are there for decades and they have a normal workload, and they have the time to expand their own mastery to be able to teach a higher level course, they’re going to be able to do that. That was something CEA President Kate Diaz talked about in my story; they love to educate, and they want to give their students as many resources as they can. But where we start to see that disconnect is whether a teacher has the capacity and the time to offer these classes and to level up their own mastery, or if the district has a high turnover. WSHU: The turnover, why is it different from district to district? JH: Yeah, one thing is the leadership in the district. If you have superintendent turnover pretty frequently, it sets the direction a district is going in. It could also be pay, it could be a wide variety of just the different conditions a district is under. Hartford is very different from West Hartford, and that’s something that I think most people are pretty aware of, that they’re all facing different challenges. And so that’s how it’s different among districts. But then you also see this in districts and the leadership in these buildings. That may be one principal saying, you know what, I think AP classes are the way to go, let’s keep offering those, how can we get more people teaching those? And some other leaders may say, you know what, I like dual credit classes, let’s expand that. Or someone might also say, we have teachers that are leaving every year, we just need to focus on getting our core classes done. So you see it on the district level based on those district challenges and funding and what they’re facing locally. But you also see it within individual school buildings. WSHU: So, not all ECE-certified teachers are put to use in school districts. JH: Yeah, that’s the other part of it. Even if a teacher says, you know what, I’m going to go get certified, I want to teach these courses again when you’re seeing more of these high turnover districts, that’s where you’re seeing like, you know what, we just need to focus on having our core classes done. We’re losing teachers left and right. Maybe an English teacher left mid-semester, and you need someone to cover that course. The other part of that is that even if a teacher is certified, sometimes the needs are in other places, so they may not necessarily have the time or the staff capacity to offer this kind of extracurricular core courses. WSHU: So is there anything that’s being done to try and equalize this? JH: Yeah, I think you’re seeing these grants. That’s the first thing that they’re offering more incentive to districts to offer these courses. That was something that Governor Ned Lamont issued, I think, back in 2023, if I’m not mistaken. You’re seeing that UConn is going to these individual schools and saying, hey, how can we help you? That was something they said in a lot of the dialogs, and they’re very receptive. They have ambassadors at different schools and different districts that are able to offer those resources. So I think we’re seeing a little bit of that, but a lot of it just really does boil down to stability and also having, like, the correct funding in place that, okay, we can pay teachers to stay here, we can create good work environments that they want to stay here. But how do we now level up to that next level of course offerings? WSHU: One of the most important things about this is that it reduces the cost of college for low-income and first-generation students. Could you just tell us how that happens? JH: Definitely. So what they do at Title 1 schools is waive all of the costs for these courses. So if you’re going to a district that has a high threshold of low-income students, just from the bat, that extra cost barrier has been eliminated. But in other districts, it’s $50 a credit, which is pennies to the dollar. When you think about it, when people are paying, I think it was like over $700 per credit at UConn when they attend that school, so to be able to take that a little early for $50 or less per credit just really helps save money. I took these courses when I was in high school, and I ended up graduating with an associate’s degree. that transferred to my university, and I saved two years of college, which I think, at the time, was like $60,000 a year. So it definitely adds up. WSHU: And what determines whether you get it? Is it just the happenstance of which school district you’re in? JH: Yeah, it’s not even what district you’re in. It could even be just what school building you are assigned to based on what part of the city you live in. Something I looked into in this story was in Waterbury. One school may offer three courses, but the other school a few blocks away offers 12 courses. So yeah, it definitely depends on the district. Obviously, there are higher averages in suburban districts that have more stability. But it also just depends on school buildings and the school leadership. WSHU: And Jessika, is there anywhere parents can get involved in this and try to find out which schools are offering these courses? JH: Yeah, one interesting thing is it kind of begins early in the process. When I was first exposed to these courses, I was in middle school, and that’s something based on conversations with these school leaders and district leaders. They’re trying to get into these students’ houses as soon as possible. So that’s starting these conversations in middle school, having these course offerings available to these children when they’re in eighth grade, ninth grade, before they even come to that high school setting, and being aware of just what all those offerings, offerings and opportunities are, and whether that’s the best fit. If a dual credit class isn’t the best fit, maybe an AP class is the best fit. If that’s not the best fit, maybe it’s honors. Or, maybe they don’t want to be in dual credit calculus, but I can be in dual credit EMT training. So there are those different resources. And I think those conversations are happening earlier, and that’s the best way to reach parents and their families, students and their families earlier: just having those dialogs, sending things back home, having these places where parents could come into the schools and ask questions, and that kind of thing.