NORTHFIELD —Several new college level courses are offered at Pioneer Valley Regional School this spring, including one that improves on the dual-enrollment model the school has used in the past for high school students to earn college credits.
With past dual-enrollment courses, high school students at Pioneer could enroll in courses taught at Greenfield Community College as part of their regular high school curriculum, and simultaneously earn credits for high school and college.
This spring, a new one-semester criminal justice course, open to grades 10, 11 and 12, will be Pioneer’s first high school course for college credit held at Pioneer rather than at GCC. Superintendent Jon Scagel said this should make it more accessible for students who don’t know how to drive than previous dual-enrollment courses were.
The new course is part of a recently expanding collaboration with GCC that Scagel hopes will not only enrich Pioneer’s course offerings, but maybe also give high school students access to some of the college’s extra-curricular programs, like guest speakers and college clubs.
While it has previously been possible for Pioneer students to earn associate’s degrees through dual-enrollment courses with GCC, Scagel hopes to make that opportunity more accessible by holding more dual-enrollment courses at Pioneer. Ultimately, the goal is to make it possible to earn an associate’s degree entirely at Pioneer, without physically going to GCC.
Last week the School Committee also approved three other courses, not for college credit. Two reflect the re-orientation of the woodshop classroom into a makerspace: a class on digital art and graphic design; and a class on building and designing with different physical materials, including wood, 3-d printing and robotics.
The third class is “Music Exploration,” which Principal Jean Bacon described as a more accessible replacement for the music theory class, which had low enrollment in recent years.