In an effort to provide Delaware high school students opportunities to earn college credit, Delaware Tech is collaborating with many local school districts to provide innovative programs and services that are motivating students to achieve.
“One way to increase a student’s chance of success in college is to assess his or her English and math skills as a junior using a college placement test like the one we use here at Delaware Tech,” notes Stephanie Smith, vice president for academic affairs. “The test determines whether a student is prepared for college-level work. If the scores aren’t where they need to be, a student has a chance to improve during his or her senior year.” Several districts in New Castle are currently investigating purchasing access to Accuplacer, Delaware Tech’s online testing software, in order to offer this service to juniors. Other districts in Kent and Sussex have either encouraged students to test at the College or organized group visits. For example, in spring of 2009, the Sussex school districts brought a total of 247 students to the College’s Georgetown campus for testing. And Indian River is collaborating with faculty there to potentially develop a new senior year math course that will help their students prepare for the Accuplacer.
Delaware Tech is also working with various school districts across the state to offer college-level courses to fully-qualified high school students. Here’s an overview of existing and future programs.
In Sussex County, the Academic Challenge Program, established in 1987, is a partnership between the nine Sussex County School Districts and Delaware Tech’s Owens Campus in Georgetown. Its mission is to nurture the scholastic and creative abilities of highly motivated and academically talented students in math and English.
The students range from eighth graders to high school seniors, and the five-year program offers them the standard high school curriculum in math and English at an accelerated pace allowing for college course work during their junior and senior years. The college courses are provided at the Owens Campus through Delaware Tech and the University of Delaware, and students may earn as many as 12 college credits in English and 15 college credits in math all of which are paid for by their district.
Rachael Chamberlin, a graduate of Milford high school, is thankful for her participation in Academic Challenge which helped her get started on a degree in public policy from George Washington University in D.C.: “The program gave me early exposure to challenging, college-level work. I was able to enter college with a full year of credits and graduated with a double major in just three years."
