Klein and Spring ISDs are amping up efforts to prepare students for college by improving and expanding existing programs and initiating some new ones.
Both KISD and SISD introduce students to the notion of college as early as kindergarten, with events like College Color Days, where students wear the school color of the college of their choice. KISD has a day where teachers wear their college T-shirts.
“Kids start to connect college and ‘My teacher went to college,’” said Beth Gilleland, KISD instructional officer for guidance and counseling.
KISD incorporates Path, a system for college and career readiness that engages students’ critical thinking and reading skills, which can become high school credit for eighth-grade students, Gilleland said. Path builds a foundation for asking quality questions in the classroom and sharpens the skills of students for college.
KISD students can also use a website called College Knowledge, which has informational tidbits compiled in short videos with advice. Students can also access Career Cruising, a college and career exploration website, Gilleland said.
Career Cruising allows students to engage in surveys that point them to interests to help determine what college and careers they should pursue.
Both KISD and SISD pay for students to take the PSAT exam.
“We found that if students are exposed to how the test is set up and how they can take this type of test, and if they have that exposure to that by the time they get into their 11th year, then they have a much better understanding,” Gilleland said.
Legislation
Gilleland said House Bill 5, which was passed by the Texas Legislature in 2013, paved the way for schools to become more involved with tools to carve career pathways.
“The way the state law is written is that every student must have a four-year plan in place,” she said. “We’ve always had an extraordinarily proactive counseling staff, but that allows us to get parents involved.”
The SISD board of trustees approved a three-year contract for a program called Naviance worth nearly $400,000 at a meeting in 2015. It is a college- and career-readiness app for middle and high school students to help them align their strengths and interests to college goals, said Reginald Peters, SISD college- and career-readiness coordinator.
“It centralizes the college application process and allows for transcripts to be requested and college documents to be sent electronically,” Peters said. “It also allows parents to be able to have access to see where their students are in the process.”
Peters said the district offers the PSAT free to students in grades 8-11.
“In order to help students prepare, we are offering a [PSAT] Saturday boot camp in the fall and the spring for all students,” he said.
Peters said SISD is working with the Lone Star College system in a partnership to increase the dual-credit offerings, a program in which a high school student enrolls in a college course and earns high school and college credit for the course. There are 50 options, including art history and macroeconomics.
In addition, Prairie View A&M University partnered with SISD in March to provide early admission and other services to college-bound students.
SISD Superintendent Rodney Watson said the partnership supports Every Child 2020, a strategic improvement plan in the district to foster student success.
Students who rank in the top 25 percent by the end of their junior year are eligible to apply for early admission to PVAMU, Peters said.
The district also offers College Community Career, which is a college access program that begins with sophomores and follows students to and through higher education, he said.
“They have a cohort of students that meet once a week outside of class, and they focus on college readiness,” Peters said. “They discuss SAT, college applications—it takes them through that path so when they graduate they have the tools ready for success.”
