CHERRY TWP — In a first for Moniteau School District, high school juniors and seniors will soon be able to collect high school credit for college courses taken at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania and Butler County Community College.

Along with approving a new forensics curriculum for its high school, board directors approved dual enrollment agreements with IUP and BC3 at a school board meeting Monday, March 26.

Both initiatives will go into effect in the 2024-25 school year.

Regarding the dual enrollment agreement, Lance Fox, co-principal of academic affairs at Moniteau Jr./Sr. High School, said after the meeting that enrolling in one of the 10 college classes offered to Moniteau juniors and seniors by IUP or BC3 would not replace a core class taken at the high school, such as English, math, science or social studies.

Rather, the class, taken at either BC3 or IUP, would count as a high school elective while giving the student the opportunity to gain college credit.

Students will be able choose from five courses at BC3 and five from IUP. Students need 26 credits to graduate high school, Fox said.

He said students and their families would be responsible for covering the cost of the course.

Fox said dual enrollment is a new initiative in the school district, and said about seven students so far have expressed interest in the opportunity. Previously, individual students could opt to take college classes on their own, but would not have received high school credit for doing so.

“This is the first time it’s opened up to any student who’s in 11th or 12th grade,” Fox said. “Which we’re excited about, because it gives them more opportunities.”

He said the initiative came about with guidance counselor Chelsea Vanasco visiting colleges and universities around Butler County.

“We’re gifted and we’re blessed that we have so many post-secondary schools around,” Fox said.

Fox said that news of the dual enrollment agreements would be shared with the entire junior and senior classes sometime in mid-April. His hope, he said, was for 10 to15 students from both classes to express interest in dual enrollment.

There are 63 students in Moniteau’s current senior class, Fox said.

As for the school district’s newly-approved forensics curriculum, which was designed by science teacher Kate Markle to create an additional science elective, Fox said the push to implement the course as soon as next school year was largely student-driven, with 30 students already having expressed interest in signing up.

“Normally we don’t approve curriculum this late in the year, but because we had so many kids say ‘Yes, I want to take that class,’ we rushed it,” Fox said. “So I’m excited to get it past (the school board).”

A lab will be built into the class, he said, but administrators are considering implementing a separate lab to complement the course in the coming years.

“Imagine with forensics, the labs you can do,” he said.