Plano ISD students will soon have the opportunity to enroll in a longer list of dual credit courses through the district’s partnership with Collin College.

Plano ISD staff have observed a 70 percent increase in dual credit enrollment between the fall 2015 and fall 2017 semesters, and hope to also increase the number of courses offered—including the future implementation of technical work force training.




District staff on Monday revealed their plans to stagger the implementation of the new courses over the 2018-19 and 2019-20 school years. Lisa Thibodeaux, executive director for secondary academic services, said at the meeting she hopes to tap current district faculty to begin teaching the newly implemented courses over the next two years.

PISD also hopes to expand the technical workforce training with Collin College to include fields such as architecture and construction, engineering technology and information technology. The future industries academy will be at the Collin College Technical Campus, with plans to implement it in the 2020-21 academic year.

“What really excites me is the fact that 18- and 19-year-old kids can get out of high school [or] a year of college making a lot of money,” board Vice President David Stolle said. “If you want to figure out how to recruit these kids, tell them how much money they can make as a welder.”

But district staff cautioned students, saying not all courses transfer to other universities.

An anticipated course list for the technical college was not provided in the presentation.

The list of expected future available courses include the following:

  • Pre-calculus

  • Statistics

  • English III

  • Learning framework

  • Speech

  • AP biology

  • Art

  • Theater

  • English IV