Texas Border Business –
MCALLEN, TX (August 29, 2016) – Beginning this school year, South Texas College in partnership with Weslaco East High School have begun a unique pilot program aiming to foster a college-ready mindset among dual credit students.
A first among Valley high schools, STC has started the initiative in Weslaco and hopes to extend it to other schools in the region. Looking to cut out the middleman for students who are registering for college courses for the first time, the program allows them to take responsibility for the initial stage of their college experience.
“We’re trying to promote a college going culture in our dual credit student population. Right now, none of our dual credit students register themselves for courses, that enrollment is handled between an STC representative and a high school counselor,” said Tony Matamoros, Director of Dual2Degree High Schools at STC. “Because a lot of our students are registered manually through an STC or high school official, they have no knowledge of Jagnet or what DegreeWorks is so they are underutilizing all these resources that are so important for them to be successful.”
Dual credit is a program offered at STC that allows eligible students in high school to take college courses that also applies as high school credit.
Jagnet is STC’s official portal that enables students to receive a wide range of tools and resources including payment deadlines, registration access and course information. DegreeWorks is STC’s self-advising tool that provides real-time advice and counsel, streamlines the graduation process and allows direct access to multiple related services and advice through hyperlinks, catalog information, class schedules, and FAQs.
“I think before, when we registered and just had them sign those s-forms, students didn’t really understand that they were signing up for a college class,” said Carey Boleach, head counselor at Weslaco East High School. “Today, the students were on Jagnet and they can actually see their schedule, they looked at their GPA, they saw their degree plan; they saw how all these are connected, and I think for some of them they realized it has an impact on their classes they are going to take for college and even their financial aid. They realized the impact of it.”
STC opted to begin the pilot program at Weslaco East because of the school’s unique dual credit registration process. The school uses an extra-long screening process, and often registers students by November and January, according to Boleach.
“From the time they register, we start verifying their eligibility and begin telling them what they need, whether they qualify and things like that. By the end of the year, once we get their scores back in June, we remove all the kids who don’t qualify,” Boleach said. “I think it’s important for the students to understand that they are part of the process. They need to understand that being in college, this is how it works. It’s a lot different from high school.
Boleach says other school districts in the Valley may begin seeing the benefits of an extended screening process.
“I think for the school districts, the difference is the people who don’t register for this and who don’t plan or don’t do the long screening process are extremely busy at the beginning of the year because they are trying to submit all these documents and everything else.”
STC has more than 119 degree and certificate programs including associate degrees in a variety of art, science, technology and allied health fields as well as bachelor degrees in applied technology.
The college is located in a number of campuses located throughout Hidalgo and Starr counties. The Pecan Campus, Mid-Valley Campus and Starr County Campus offer traditional college programs. The Nursing Allied Health Campus and the Technology Campus provide specialized training for students entering the workforce.
“When you go to college, all of the things you have to do, you have to do them on your own,” said Arturo Martinez Jr., Dual2Degree specialist at STC. “You have to register on your own, you have to look up your own classes. So, by doing this online registration with dual credit students, they are able to get that college sense. While in the past the enrollment might have been done by STC staff, but now that we are moving towards this, we want the students to feel they are college students, not just high school students. TBB
