Next year, students at BV West taking Honors Pre-Calculus & Trigonometry will receive college credit for the course.
In the past, Honors Pre-Calculus has not offered college credit. Recently, the Blue Valley District has seriously considered adding college credit to the course that would be given through the College Now Program sponsored by JCCC. Getting the college credit would allow students to eliminate a few required math credits in college and to save time and money.
This new option for credit has already caused teachers to add topics to their curriculum. Their classes will become more rigorous because of the addition of four to five new topics.
“I believe the level of difficulty will remain the same,” Cheryl Kerns, an Honors Pre-Calculus teacher at BV West, said. “We will just cover a few more topics than we have in the past and we’ll removed the Finance Project as a mandatory activity. The Finance Project will be optional.”
With the possibility of college credit next year, teachers have already inserted the new topics. However, the students this year will not receive college credit even though they are doing the same work. The teachers are using this as an opportunity to test out the new curriculum to see how it would work.
“It sucks to be in [the class] this year, but I guess that I can’t really do anything about it,” Phoebe Kim, a junior at BV West currently taking Honors Pre-Calculus, said. “It would have saved a couple hundred dollars.”
If college credit were to be added to the course, all of the Blue Valley Schools would offer it. Also, because it is being offered through JCCC, Olathe and Shawnee Mission Schools will also consider it. It is a great opportunity and will be offered through JCCC’s College Now program.
College Now partners with schools to allow students to gain a few college credits while still meeting their high school requirements. The program reaps several benefits such as lowering the cost of college, allowing for an easier workload in college, and giving students a taste of the college workload.
“I feel it would be great if I could get some extra college credit before I leave high school,” sophomore Shelley Bushman said. “If you want to go to school in state, it is great for that. It will transfer for sure.”
While this is a great option for students going to school within the state of Kansas, College Now does not transfer out of state to the frustration of some students.
“I wish it was AP because College Now doesn’t transfer everywhere, and it would be a waste of time,” sophomore Molly Connor said. “I want to go out of country or out of the region; I’m going to have to beg for AP credits already.”
Besides the fact that a limited amount of colleges accept College Now, the college credit will still be very useful and helpful for students.
“I think it will be a nice reward for taking the class,” Kerns said. “Trigonometry is considered a higher level of math than college algebra and we currently offer college credit for that. It will be nice if we can help students get additional math credits for college.”
Although the class will become more challenging, the benefits will outweigh the disadvantages for students taking Honors Pre-Calculus at BV West.