Conway County program provides students unique access to college

24 Apr 2018 Conway County program provides students unique access to college

Posted at 8:51 PMh in Features by Dwain Hebda

Conway County educational leaders, businesses and a local community foundation are working together in a unique way to help provide educational opportunities for young people.

“We really wanted to provide an opportunity to the students that we serve,” said Shawn Halbrook, superintendent with South Conway County School District in Morrilton. “A lot of our kids have an access barrier to college, be it money or they just don’t have the structure to help them get there.”

Wonderview Superintendent Jamie Stacks (from left), South Conway County School District Superintendent Shawn Halbrook, Nemo Vista High School student Dylan Watters, School Counts! board member and Assistant to the UACCM Chancellor Mary Newsome, UACCM Chancellor Dr. Larry Davis, UACCM Vice Chancellor for Student Services and School Counts! Board Member Darren Jones and School Counts! Board Chairman Dr. Thomas Flowers at the new Workforce Training Center at the University of Arkansas Community College at Morrilton. Dylan is one of the Conway County high school students who also attends UACCM, thanks to the School Counts! program. (Mike Kemp photo)

Halbrook, along with his peer superintendents in the Wonderview and Nemo Vista school districts, met with Dr. Larry Davis, chancellor at the University of Arkansas Community College-Morrilton, and together refined an audacious idea of making college courses available to high school students free of charge.

“A lot of the kids and their families can’t afford the cost of taking concurrent classes,” Davis said. “It was a matter of how do we get them trained so the kids or the parents are not going to have to come up with a bunch of money.”

The three high schools committed to paying $50 per credit hour for each student who took advantage of the program during their junior and senior years. UACCM agreed to waive fees averaging more than $40 per student for all the county’s high schools, which also includes the private institution Sacred Heart.

The group turned to School Counts!, a local foundation, to pick up the remaining $40 per credit hour.

“Our main goal is to help students understand the importance of higher education,” said Lawana Lyon, a board member for School Counts! “We have a lot of students here whose parents didn’t go to college, so they don’t talk about college at the dinner table.”

Lyon said the board immediately saw the value of the new proposal and signed on to cover the remaining costs, a share that has totaled more than $23,000 in tuition support in the past two years.

Davis said the cooperative spirit among many shareholders was the most amazing element of the organizational process.

“I’ve not seen a partnership anywhere like this with the local college, the county public schools and the local foundation all chipping in to help pay for kids’ education. I have not seen that anywhere,” Davis said. “It’s unique. It’s exciting.”

The initiative was an immediate success as students whose interests didn’t match a four-year college experience suddenly had a free alternative that could provide them with a certificate at the same time they pick up their high school diploma.

“We have three students this May who are actually going to get some sort of certificate or an associate’s degree — one in welding and two in industrial maintenance,” Lyon said.

“The kids that we were really targeting were the career technical kids because we need kids that, when they graduate high school, are almost done with some kind of certification to be employed,” Halbrook said. “There are many high-wage, high-demand jobs — like welding, plumbing and HVAC — that do not require a four-year degree.”

Davis said the college accentuates its technical training with workplace readiness skills, noting there’s a difference between someone who’s trained and someone who’s work ready.

“A lot of these kids will finish high school with a certificate of proficiency or technical certificate, and they could actually go get a job,” he said. “The concern that we have is you’re still dealing with the maturity level of an 18-year-old. So part of what we teach in the program is work ethic, showing up to work every day, showing up on time. Those are all parts of our program, too.”

Plans are to expand the program’s reach to students outside of technical career fields. To accommodate the cost, a campaign is under way to raise additional funds for School Counts! by some members of Leadership Conway County.

“The School Counts! board established the initial endowment in 2010, and they haven’t touched it since then,” said Ashley Newman, mortgage originator with Centennial Bank and a member of the Leadership group. “That’s where we came in.”

Newman and her colleagues plan to visit 150 community investors in person to ask for additional funds to expand the program and to raise awareness. The effort has already yielded one big donation — $25,000.

“We felt that this was something that brings value to Conway County, brings value to the students and the workforce and UACCM,” Newman said. “It’s a win for everybody.”

Halbrook said the program is a testament to what can be done when forces in the community exercise creative problem-solving.

“Get at the table and start having a conversation and developing relationships,” he said by way of advice. “Understand you can’t get everything for you; it’s about doing something for the people you serve, which for us is our students and our community.”

Dwain Hebda

Dwain Hebda is a writer, editor and journalist living in Little Rock. The president of Ya!Mule Wordsmiths, he’s covered a wide range of subject matter over the course of his 40 years of professional writing that includes magazines, newspapers and books. When he’s not bringing the tales of Arkansas and her people to the page, Hebda and his wife spend their energy on their four grown children and three lovely dogs.