Oakland Gets Early College: Students Offered Diploma, Credits
By Lori Higgins, Detroit Free Press
Mar. 25–Ines Gonzales came prepared. The application was filled out, the essay was carefully handwritten, and recommendations were in hand. And she was succinct in explaining her reasons for wanting to enroll in Oakland County’s first early college.
“It’s free,” Ines, 15 and a freshman at Brandon High School, said of the school that will allow her to earn high school and college credit.
She and her mother, Irma Moran-Gonzales, were among several dozen people who last week attended the first of three open houses to promote Oakland Early College, a new school that is the result of a partnership between the West Bloomfield School District and Oakland Community College.
When the school opens in September — for Oakland County students only — it will be the latest in a succession of early colleges in Michigan. Gov. Jennifer Granholm has touted them, proposing last week the creation of an early college in Pontiac that would be focused on medical careers.
Oakland Early College will require high school students to spend five years in school, take their classes at OCC’s Orchard Ridge campus in Farmington Hills and graduate with a high school diploma and either an associate’s degree or up to 60 credits that can transfer to a four-year university.
Students pay nothing, though they’re responsible for their transportation to the school. Their tuition is covered by the state’s per-pupil funding, which follows them from the school they’re now enrolled in to Oakland Early College.
If enrollment targets are met — 120 10th- and 11th-graders in the first year — the program will cost nothing to the West Bloomfield district, said Kendra Hearn, the district’s assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction.
Ines wants to go to a four-year college out of state, so the opportunity to earn up to two years of college credit for free will help, Moran-Gonzales said. Plus, being on a college campus will be an advantage.
“This will be a good stepping-stone for her,” Moran-Gonzales said.
Also planning to enroll at Early College is Mariah Williams, a 16-year-old from Keego Harbor who is a sophomore at Walled Lake Central High School. She attended this week’s open house with her mother, D’Angela Williams.
In the first year, the school is to enroll 10th- and 11th-graders. By the third year of operation, it is to enroll ninth-graders. When fully in operation, it will have a maximum of 300 students, said Gary Weisserman, interim head of the school who also oversees early college and K-16 initiatives at University of Michigan-Flint.
“That’s a huge, huge thing,” said Weisserman, because comprehensive high schools today are much larger and “it’s easy to slip through the cracks.”
There are some trade-offs. There is that fifth year of high school, which all students must complete. And the students also give up the traditional trappings of bigger high schools.
“The reality is the school will probably never have a full-fledged football team. … But keep in mind what you’re gaining,” Hearn said.
Contact LORI HIGGINS at 248-351-3694 or lhiggins@freepress.com.
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