Developing a Robust Dual Enrollment Program

How can your school district build a robust dual/concurrent enrollment program? In this episode, we are joined by Michael Werner, Post-Secondary Planning Coordinator from Mounds View Public Schools. Michael will share practical tips on growing your program, communicating with students/parents, and how they expanded to offer an Associate’s degree in high school. If you are invested in dual/concurrent enrollment, this episode is full of helpful resources and best practices.

Transcript

Matthew Sterenberg (00:01.28)

All right, Michael, welcome to the podcast.

Michael Werner (00:05.07)

Thank you. Nice to be here.

Matthew Sterenberg (00:07.256)

So Michael, I really wanted to talk about growing and developing robust dual enrollment, concurrent enrollment programs in the high school and at districts. But let’s get into your background a little bit. Did you grow up, know, when you were a little kid, did you always think I want to work in dual enrollment? Was that always your dream?

Michael Werner (00:28.088)

To be honest, I had no idea what dual or concurrent enrollment was when I was growing up. Our high school in South Central Minnesota didn’t have these offerings, so mostly just an AP high school. But I knew I wanted to work in education in some sort, and so as seems to be the classic roundabout way for most of us who’ve gotten into concurrent enrollment, it’s through exposure to opportunities.

Matthew Sterenberg (00:55.02)

Well, one of the cool things I think about your background is that you worked on the college side and now you’re at mountains view public schools. What did you learn from your experience working for the college and how did you end up back at the school district?

Michael Werner (01:11.074)

Well, thank you. Yes, it’s neat to have experiences at both levels. So I understand the commitment a college needs to make to a school and a school district to have a robust program offering. And I now have a pretty good understanding of the scheduling and the intricacies of credentialing and getting the right faculty into the right positions to teach the courses

working closely with students and families to get them to understand the benefits, but the challenges and the advantages down the road that concurrent enrollment offer. And so that’s been a really great opportunity for me and one that I’ve really enjoyed, which is, you know, not having a program that is, you know, random acts of concurrent enrollment, which has become pretty popular as far as just saying, Hey, we have a teacher who can teach our English course.

have an English course, but a series of offerings where students get exposure in a variety of different disciplines that if they choose to go in Minnesota to a two -year school, likely will meet the requirements for math, science, and communication studies. And so we can get students of all backgrounds engaged and prepared for what’s next after they graduate.

Matthew Sterenberg (02:31.416)

So I’m glad you brought up the random acts of concurrent enrollment. And for those listening, we’re going to use concurrent enrollment and dual enrollment interchangeably. Just to set the table for everybody, you’re kind of like, why are there multiple terms? know, different states use different terms. And there’s some people based on the modality, like, is it being taught at the high school as a college course? Is it on the college campus? There’s a lot of different terminologies.

Your state may use a different one, but the pathways piece you highlighted is critical, right? We don’t want random acts of concurrent enrollment. So if I’m sitting there thinking, we’ve got some in dual enrollment at my school district. How do I get to the, become more of a pathways? Like, how do I ensure, how do I build those partnerships with community colleges? If I’m just starting out or I really want to grow my program, what advice do you have or how did you get to that point where you were able

build this in and kind of at the heart of my question is how much of this can school districts control and how much of this is a product of state policy and the proximity of the community college. So give me a little bit of the background and educate us on how we can go about doing

Michael Werner (03:48.44)

Sure. Those are all really good points. And I think the quick answer to all of it is everything. what we did when I worked at the community college and the districts surrounding us started to get more interested in doing comprehensive programming and getting away from the random acts of concurrent enrollment, which we call it in Minnesota, was really to challenge the leadership teams and the superintendents and

Matthew Sterenberg (03:54.966)

Hahaha

Michael Werner (04:18.372)

you know, the executives in the school district to come up with a goal. And once they established some a goal, so a random or an example could be an AA degree like students in our two high schools in the district can earn or jobs for the future came out with a comprehensive report saying that 12 college credits by 12th grade. So a 12 by 12 model really is kind of the the tipping point to get students.

who had not thought about college as an attainable goal for them to get the confidence as well as the credits to make that a possibility. And so once school districts come up with that type of a goal, they can work closely with their Institute of Higher Education to put those pieces together. And so that gives the college from the college perspective, a good understanding of the commitment, but then also a good understanding

where and how to build towards it. So instead of saying like, hey, you’ve got an English teacher, to use my example from earlier, we’ll start with English and just kind of hope for the best. It can be a, hey, you have an English teacher who’s credentialed to teach this course. We’re gonna start there as our building block. And from there, we’ll take a year to look at, know, if credentialing is the big issue, going from

take a year to do a lot of work educating parents and families about the importance of this work and the direction we’re going. And from there, understanding what the next building block is going to be. you know, a lot of districts have conversations about the differences between AP and concurrent enrollment. So that might be a good opportunity to have conversations

Do we have the capacity to offer both of those or are we going to move from an AP course to a concurrent enrollment course? Well, what does that mean for our students who have required or asked for AP coursework? So what do we have to do from that part? But I think really building a goal and then working closely with your Institute of Higher Ed to build

Michael Werner (06:34.21)

what needs to be there for the foundation to start working towards that goal will be really, really a meaningful approach to impacting a large number of students.

Matthew Sterenberg (06:45.644)

You mentioned the AA degree. That’s incredible. Your students are walking away with an associates and you’re not an early college, right? It’s more your traditional high school that is also building this in. How do you piece that together? How do you get students to get all those credits while also having time for electives, athletics, theater?

you know, all the other things that you want to be part of, like a holistic student experience.

Michael Werner (07:18.798)

Well, thank you, Matt. That’s very nice of you. We’re very proud of the early college opportunities our students have in our district. We put it together with the goal that students can pursue their AA degree by taking, you know, a large number of concurrent enrollment coursework in our high school building, but then also leveraging the AP coursework that we already had as part of our curriculum. so students who do earn their AA degree have

you know, probably a 70 -30 split. 70 % of their coursework is completed through concurrent enrollment with our Institute of Higher Education partner, Anoka -Ramsey. And the other 30 % is done usually through AP test offerings. And so this was a mix of, an intentional mix of opportunities for students who can take some of the AP courses in ninth and 10th grade when traditionally students in Minnesota aren’t taking concurrent enrollment coursework just yet.

So students have an early opportunity to start on this roadmap and this pathway in order to do that. And that also helps give students the opportunity to use some of their very, very limited elective space to pursue four years of choir, which we have phenomenal choir and music programs in our district. We’re very proud of those as well.

And world language is another one that we worked closely with students and families to identify some of the most important electives that they would want to take and enhance their opportunities versus limit them if they chose to pursue the AA degree. And to a large extent, we’ve been successful.

Matthew Sterenberg (09:01.769)

and

Yeah, it sounds like it. mean, I, mentioned I hadn’t, you you hadn’t heard of dual enrollment. I had no concept of it when I was in high school. I don’t know if we had it or I don’t know if they have it today or not. It was just, I knew I wasn’t an AP student and that was it. so, but that brings up like when, you know, again, putting myself in the shoes of someone who’s kind of getting a program started and maybe you do a lot of AP today.

You know, AP was always, you know, a certain type of student that was kind of, Hey, we think you’re an AP student. Like this is how the conversations would typically go. And now you have dual, dual enrollment and you’re doing a mix of both because of the reasons you highlighted, but what are the conversations you’re having with students and parents about which path is right for them? What the right mix is? Because I could see some people, AP has more of

Brand around it if that makes sense like prestige is maybe a different way to put it How do you navigate those conversations about what the right approach is and if you were sitting down with a family? How would you talk to them

Michael Werner (10:15.586)

Those are great thoughts and really good opportunities to delve into, again, the goal of what a program, a robust concurrent enrollment or AP program would be. And then really working towards opening up the opportunities to a variety of different students. And so we were really intentional about figuring out ways that students we consider in the academic middle, so about the 30th to 70th percentile.

can achieve college level credits through a variety of different opportunities. And so some of that is gonna be through your traditional AP model, like we’ve already talked about. And those are students and families who are aware of what AP means. Those are students and families who are comfortable with the idea that what I’m learning in October is something that’s likely gonna be on a test in May. And they’re aware of that and they’re okay with

I will give a ton of credit to our teachers who do all of the AP teaching that they spend a ton of time in review and planning for the AP test. But if you’re someone like me, who’s not a good test taker, that was very intimidating. So then you can have a conversation with students and families and say, we have other opportunities for you to earn college credit. those opportunities when you do a C work or better.

In most cases, it’s better than a C. You’re going to earn college credit, but you’re going to know where you stand the entire course. You’re going to have a good understanding of what you might need to do in order to pass the course. Have a very good understanding of what you want to do if you want to get an A in the course. And then you just have to work very hard to get that. And so for some families, that resonates with the idea of you’re a hard worker, you do really well. But I also know that you get really, really, really

anxious about taking tests. And other families with the prestige idea are like, would rather have you take the AP course. And if you don’t get a passing score on the test that might get you college credit, we know you’re going to be very well prepared to take that course at the college level. And we’ve done quite a bit of work with maybe the top five to 10, depending on the year, colleges, universities that our students attend.

Michael Werner (12:38.98)

and get a better understanding as to whether or not they accept concurrent enrollment credit and at what level. So for instance, if a student is going into the College of Biological Sciences at the University of Minnesota, they will likely want to take AP Biology, AP Chemistry, AP Physics, because that is more likely to be aligned with and accepted as the equivalent of Biology 1, Biology 2, Chem 1, Chem 2, than the introductory offerings that we have

And again, it’s personal choice and personal preference.

Matthew Sterenberg (13:14.786)

So I think that’s a good segue into how you communicate broadly, getting the word out about dual enrollment, know, students and parents, it’s a family decision on what courses they’re gonna schedule. And then, I mean, you highlighted this already, like how do we support them along the way? What structures do you have in place to make sure that the community understands what you’re trying to do and what’s available to them, what supports are in place?

Michael Werner (13:39.746)

Yeah, again, that really important point to make sure that people understand it, just like you and I had to clarify the difference between dual enrollment and concurrent enrollment. We have to spend a lot of time, I think, universally as an Institute of Higher Education or a school district, explaining what these terms mean and what advantages or disadvantages might come up with that, what pros and cons might be there for different schools or different students. And so

We’re very fortunate in our district to have a Dean model where our deans work similar to a counselor. But in this model, we have a far lower Dean to student ratio than in the state of Minnesota, which ranks as one of the bottom five when it comes to consular to student ratio. we’re pretty, we’re well situated and build some very good relationships with students and parents to do that. But we’re finding out

having these conversations with incoming ninth graders, which all ninth graders get an opportunity to meet with their dean before they come, you know, set foot in the buildings to start the academic year. We know that there has to be a presumed level of knowledge that most families have to walk into those meetings with in order to make some wise decisions that could impact, you know, the opportunities down the road. So we spend time with the deans in the middle schools. We’ve spoken at middle school,

you communication nights. I referenced in the previous conversation with some folks, you included Matt, of being asked to talk to some elementary school families about at one of their open house nights about what does this early college mean? What can my family and my student do as an elementary student to be prepared for the challenges ahead? And so we’ve really incorporated and ingrained some of these presentations, but also some of the language.

to make sure that people in our system know what it means and know when they’re going to start encountering some of these different pieces as they move through our

Matthew Sterenberg (15:41.966)

I think that’s so critical. We want to create systems. And in some ways, you are creating a system, but it is going to come down to kind of academic advising, meeting with families. And there’s a level of listening to them, but also being prescriptive. Like, hey, I think your student, your son or daughter is ready for this, or here’s what we would recommend based on what we’ve seen.

I think some people do need that additional level of guidance. the fact that you’re able to meet with them early, I think is, huge. I’ve got a big question for you, Michael, though. It’s going to be hard to answer. But I mean, maybe it won’t be, but how do you know that this, all the efforts you’re doing for dual enrollment, concurrent enrollment are, getting to the place you want to go? Like, how do we know they’re creating better and more opportunities for students?

that they’re persisting within higher ed, that it’s saving them time and money other than, well, we know they got the credits, right? Like we, you can see that that’s happening, but how do you know that this is making a positive impact? Do you have metrics? Is it anecdotal? How do you quantify

Michael Werner (16:58.02)

Sure. Well, nationally, we’re fortunate that we have, you know, the National Alliance of Concurrent Enrollment Programs, which does a phenomenal job of promoting rigorous, high -quality concurrent enrollment. But we also have, you know, the Community College Research Center and a man named John Fink who’s done an incredible job documenting not only the growth, which anybody who’s familiar with concurrent or dual enrollment will know is just growing in an astounding rate early research even before the massive growth had shown that concurrent enrollment has proven to be a fundamental driver in increasing matriculation from high school graduation in spring to fall enrollment, has increased fall to fall enrollment at the post -secondary institutions.

And then we’re fortunate in Minnesota to have a statewide longitudinal educational data system, nicknamed SLEDs, which in Minnesota makes a lot of sense with snow. But that also has been something we’ve relied on as a district to check and see where our students are and what level of education they’ve pursued after a certain number of years out. Fortunately, the state legislature funded more money towards SLEDs so that the data update can happen sooner than it has in the past, so the lag isn’t quite there.

But anecdotally, we’ve learned from siblings, from students who have graduated and come back and told us different stories that originally we were telling people and families that you can graduate early. You’ll have enough credits that instead of four years, you can leave at three. You’ll be graduating. You’ll enter as a sophomore, all of these different things. And people kept coming back and were like, no, no, no, no, no, no.

I took on a different major. I have two majors. I took a semester off to work in an internship in my field and was able to graduate in four years because I had all of these credits. Or I was able to study abroad and take different courses out of a sequence but jump right back in when I got back. And so a lot of students and a lot of families would come back and say like this was great and it allowed my kid to do all of these things. And so it

Michael Werner (19:20.484)

a driver necessarily of graduating early. It was a driver of I had all of these different opportunities that I could pursue or, you know, those students who are choosing to go to a community college or those students who are choosing to go to college and work, they could say I could take 12 credits versus 15 and have a better balance between working and my academic life and my social life.

And so that’s been, the numbers are great and we run, you know, and publicize our numbers. publicize the number of credits earned. We publicize what that equates to at the University of Minnesota in tuition dollars saved. Those are all really great, but the thing I think that motivates all of us and most in education is the rewarding feeling of having somebody come back and being like, I totally like found what I wanted to do. I could identify with that and I could build my portfolio around it to get a really awesome job. And so those have been

Matthew Sterenberg (20:22.988)

Yeah, and they’re getting an associates. like, even before they leave your campus, like, you don’t even have to guess of like, is this getting them a credential? Like it is, they were here and they got an associates. And to your point, if I was advising that might be like, listen, students, you don’t want to graduate college in three years. Okay. Hold onto it as long as possible. It’s not the real world. Take a second major study abroad. Okay.

Michael Werner (20:45.124)

Exactly. Exactly.

Matthew Sterenberg (20:52.288)

It’s only four years of your life. Do what you can make lighten your load. Do dual enrollment, but

Michael Werner (20:52.804)

Yes, do what you can, exactly.

And we have focused as well on a lot of the students who are taking our welding classes and our auto classes and really want to be more intentional with that group. I think it’s spread anecdotally instead of hauling them in and saying, hey, we are encouraging you to take a Intro to Communications course through concurrent enrollment. Maybe take an English writing course through concurrent enrollment I know your dean has said advanced algebra is the graduation requirement and once you pass that you don’t have to do it. But take college algebra because if you do take those three courses or at least one of those three you won’t have to take it at the the tech school or the community college or technical college. So that means you can jump right into your trade and take more of those courses without taking some of these other ones that we probably know you’re not that interested you’re going to be successful in them.

But if you’re going to school to weld, you want to weld. You don’t want to write. You want to weld. And that’s not a knock on any of the systems. It’s not a knock on the graduation requirements. It’s just a simple way of doing exactly like you had said, Matt, which is coming together and putting together a clear pathway and a level of understanding that’s going to benefit everybody.

In other conversations I’ve referenced, know, students and families are becoming savvy consumers. So they’re starting to figure out how they can leverage their four years in high school to either make for a really awesome four year experience in college or for some families that just can’t, you know, like financially four years of college isn’t viable or they refuse to take out student loans, how they can then leverage their experiences in high school to really

Michael Werner (22:48.472)

financially impact, in most cases lessen the responsibility as a four -year school and getting a graduate

Matthew Sterenberg (22:57.058)

What you just highlighted related to the math was a reference on another episode we did with Megan Garvey, who’s at Mesa Community College in Maricopa. And they really were intentional about trying to get the CTE, getting those students college credit and making sure that they were wrapped into all of their programs. And they said one of the biggest changes for them was just introducing a college math, like a stats or college algebra and getting that knocked out.

And then the overall theme of like lot of the conversations I’ve been having is we are so focused on pathways, which is a good thing, but so often it’s, you college or career? And it’s just this binary that doesn’t make a ton of sense. we have to do both because again, I don’t think a transactional I want to be a welder next year.

Like, yeah. And you might want to start your own business or you might want to manage people or you don’t want to do that 10 or 15 years from now. And so to think of this person as just on the career track, like what you’re doing to get them college credit matters because we’re not just looking at the next professional opportunity. It’s like, what is the long -term goal and how do we create flexibility as people shift in and change?

Michael Werner (24:24.18)

absolutely and we’re fortunate to have a lot of exposure and experience opportunities in our district as well. So students can say they want to be a welder but then take welding and be like that was awful. And so we then make it clear that those types of experiences are just as valuable as somebody who takes welding and was like this is what I’m going to do.

Then encouraging them to say, well, if this is what you want to do, here’s some other ways that we can really enhance your experience so that you truly get to college and you weld, and then you’re out of there. But again, also beginning some of these conversations earlier and students having a comprehensive introductory meeting with their dean to build that collaborative relationship early gets them to start thinking about some of these different things and saying, well, I’m not that interested in intro to business now, but I could see how having those foundational skills can be very beneficial down the road because really who knows what’s going to happen. Like you said, I could start out as a welder and then realize like, I can make a ton of money welding fences, decorative fences, because I’m artistic, I like it. And I can use that intro to business course to at least give me enough of a background to get a few of the wheels turning that I might need to

And so again, our focus too is, we intentionally named all of our career and college centers, career and college in that in most cases, the identification of what you might want to do should be the first step in then figuring out what is going to get you to that ultimate goal. And so we’re kind of this awesome spot of exploration and exposure along with, you know, some really good preparation work to move people in the direction they’d like to pursue.

Matthew Sterenberg (26:20.94)

So you started off basically communicating, start with the end in mind, right? What are your goals? And then from there, you can think about, do we have the resources available? Do we have the teachers that are credentialed? We know what to measure. Any other pieces of advice that you have for other school districts, people that are in your position or people that are just starting off, anything else that you wanna highlight for people that are thinking about their programs.

Michael Werner (26:50.864)

I mean, really the goal and end in mind of what the student experience should, the ideal student experiences and what type of college credit earning opportunities students will walk out of your buildings with is monumental. But then the infrastructure absolutely has to contain opportunities for building leaders and teachers and staff.

and counselors and everybody to have a massive understanding of the programs itself and themselves and the courses themselves. The eligibility criteria, if you’re from a state that has eligibility criteria for the different courses, but then the empowerment to have those conversations and say, Matt, you didn’t sign up for this, but I know you can do it. Like, I know you’re there. Like, this is an advantageous opportunity for you.

And building that and then maybe following up and being like, Hey, Matt, I’m going to call your mom and dad, and I’m going to have the same conversation. And so hopefully if they have more questions, we can all come and meet if we want to do that. So you have to be really intentional in building that. And then once you kind of reach this level where, you know, like you turn around and talk to your friends and did Mr. Werner talk to you about taking this class? And be like, no, I’m already in it because my brother took it and loved it. And like, he didn’t have to take it in college, so I’m already there. And you can be like, well, I’m the oldest, so this is my new experience. But how awesome would that feel as a parent to have a phone call and be like, I had this really great conversation with your kid, and I’m encouraging him to take a more challenging course. But before I keep talking to him, I wanted to let you know that A, I think he can do

But B, let’s work together to get him there because I really think it’s going to open up some other opportunities for him. And we were really lucky and still very lucky to have dedicated individuals who feel comfortable and confident having those conversations, but then also a really supportive, you know, broader ecosystem that is aware of those different opportunities and is willing to encourage others to do that. And so I think that would be the next big piece

Michael Werner (29:08.524)

Identify your goal, start building towards that, but at the same time, you know, really bringing everybody in to making sure they understand what awesome opportunities are out there for students.

Matthew Sterenberg (29:20.866)

Well, Michael, you motivated me. was like, I think I can do dual enrollment. Let’s go. I feel like I could do it. Can you call my mom and dad and tell him? Yeah. Hey, I was just on a podcast with Matt. I think he can do it.

Michael Werner (29:24.932)

You’re well situated for success. Yes, yes, I will be on the phone with them shortly.

Yeah, I’m I’m he’s he’s good. I mean intro to communication Matt, I think it’s out there for you. It’s a good

Matthew Sterenberg (29:42.454)

Hey, there you go. Well, Michael, I really appreciate you joining me. And I think it’s so awesome to have like boots on the ground. People that are living and breathing this every day. You highlighted a bunch of organizations. If you are new to dual enrollment, concurrent enrollment, check out nacep.org, NACEP.org or CCRC community college research center. They’ve got a ton of great stuff. So check them out. But Michael, thank you so much for joining

Michael Werner (30:08.654)

Thank you very much, man.

There’s always more to learn.