Dual Enrollment To Be Topic Thursday

North Idaho College and Coeur d’Alene High School counselors are inviting students and parents to learn more about dual enrollment this week.

A meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. Thursday in the Coeur d’Alene High library for sophomores and juniors and their parents.

Legislators still are ironing out details and possible revisions of a law passed last year allowing high school students to enroll in college courses for credit.

College professors balked at dual enrollment after discovering they would be required to undergo extensive background checks and fingerprinting if they teach high-school-age students.

School superintendents also expressed concern that they might lose per-student state funding if students were allowed to take college courses full time.

Advocates of dual enrollment are pushing for amendments that would allow high school students to attend college full time and also would subsidize the students’ college tuition with the state money school districts ordinarily would have received for those students.

Amendments clarifying those two issues are being considered by the Senate Education Committee.

Meanwhile, school officials statewide are attempting to comply with the law, which requires schools to begin advertising dual enrollment this month.

The state of Washington’s successful dual enrollment program, Running Start, has experienced rapid growth each year since its inception. , DataTimes