Washtenaw Community College extends course offerings to 5 local high schools

The classes will start after Labor Day, even though WCC’s semester begins on Aug. 24.

The college has long offered classes for residents of Livingston County at Brighton High School and the Hartland Educational Center. More recently, Dexter High School became an off-site location to make WCC available to western Washtenaw County residents.

The idea behind further expanding its off-site class locations is to provide high school students with greater access to dual enrollment.

Linda Blakey, associate vice president of student services at WCC, said a new college president came on board last August and started a new strategic initiative in terms of meeting with the community to determine how the college could be more responsive to community needs.

“The message we heard from the county superintendents and principals is that they wanted us to be more of a partner,” she said. “They said they had students ready for college classes but they did not have transportation to get to campus to do that.”

In a typical fall or winter semester, Blakey said WCC has about 400 dual-enrolled high school students. The college hopes to significantly increase that number this fall and then expand the number of courses offered at each high school in the future, she said.

While the sessions are targeted at attracting students from each local high school, the courses are open to the community.

The participating high schools will decide which courses to offer and control when the classes take place. According to WCC’s website, most will be scheduled after the regular school day.

Local districts have varying policies on who pays for their high school students’ tuition while they are dual-enrolled. Many districts pay the tuition for students, according to WCC.

Consent is required from a school counselor or principal to dual enroll.

Registration for WCC fall classes begins mid-July.

Call the WCC Extension Office at (734) 677-5030 for more information on the new sites.

Staff reporter Danielle Arndt covers K-12 education for AnnArbor.com. Follow her on Twitter @DanielleArndt or email her at daniellearndt@annarbor.com.