The Crookston High School is looking to help its students look for colleges in new areas across the state and country by opening up their Post-Secondary Education Options (PSEO) classes to have students expand what colleges they could be looking for, what undergraduate choices are available, and what colleges best fit for them.
The School’s PSEO classes are a state program that the high school is required to offer and allows students to enroll in college classes. At the same time, they still attend high school to help them complete some of their general college classes early or take the beginning classes of a specific major. “We’re starting to connect students with their high school career and college career. Asking what college classes they can take are in line with the major they’re looking at. For example, suppose they’re looking at becoming a dental hygienist. In that case, they need to take a Chemistry, college-level Algebra, and Human Anatomy or Physiology class,” said Crookston High School Guidance Counselor Tara Klein. “So, making sure they get those classes so they can get some of their programs out of the way, or they can start being accepted into programs like dental hygienist because they have pretty specific prerequisites for those programs.”
While the students can choose whatever college they wish to attend for the courses that let them take PSEO courses, students usually attend the local colleges such as the University of Minnesota Crookston and the Northland Community and Technical College due to their proximity and both having a great variety of undergrad classes.
However, the High School is looking to open up its options to offer more technical and major-specific classes to the students by getting the school into a consortium with three colleges for online college courses to broaden the classes students can take. “We’re trying to start tailoring things towards the kids. Regarding opening up PSEO options, we’re looking at possibly getting into a consortium with online colleges in the high school, which is a combination of three colleges, Northwest Tech, Northland Community and Technical College, and Alexandria Tech,” said Klein. “This can broaden classes with the online college in the high school, and they’ll follow the high school schedule, so we’re working on our high school schedule, and it gives them three colleges and one consortium too. There are a lot of opportunities for our students to earn college credit, and whether they plan on going to college or not, some have taken it just because they want to broaden their experience in a subject area.”
For example, the school is also looking to add a course from Northland for students to receive a welding certificate while attending high school.
Tara Klein explained that the course is an excellent way for students to save money on their college career and can be used to help students bridge the gap between high school and college by introducing them to the online platforms the colleges use to set up their school emails, register, and access classes, and turn in assignments to get them initiated to the college experience. To help the students find out what college best matches them, the school’s guidance counselors meet with the students regularly to learn what classes students wish to take in college or help them with some of the work given to them and some teachers like Industrial Education Teacher has taken the students on many trips to local businesses and manufacturing plants. “There are different platforms the courses are presented to the students in, which helps them access and set up their email, learning where to go to register and access their classes. That is a huge step because once they get to college and haven’t done that, it’s very daunting for them. We’re seeing it is overwhelming for them here at school,” Klein explained. “It gets them initiated to the college experience with things such as how they access their assignment, what are deadlines and due dates because there are no extensions on assignments, which has been an eye-opening thing for some of them. Sometimes the pace of it and the amount of writing and submitting assignments and tests can be a huge part of it but also these small discussion posts and labs.”
The PSEO classes are available at Crookston High School for all students in grades 11-12, and the school will have a meeting about the courses in the spring. If any students are interested in taking PSEO classes for the upcoming school year, they need to let the district know by May 30, 2023, to be registered.
