A local education agency (LEA) is taking a hard look at its graduation and college-going numbers and realizes the following:

• There is a significant number of students who become academically disengaged during their senior year, and while they may manage to graduate, the path is difficult, and they don’t generally end up going to college, even though they may have started high school on a college trajectory.
• While the LEA doesn’t track students beyond high school graduation, anecdotally staff are hearing more and more stories of students going to college but dropping out within the first year or two.
• The data show that students of color and who are economically disadvantaged are far more likely to drop out of high school or not be successful in college.

The LEA decides to initiate a dual enrollment program to try and better engage students in high school, improve the likelihood of graduation, and improve the chances of success in college.

• What are financial barriers for students? Course costs? Hidden costs of materials, etc.? Who will pay for the courses? What can the LEA do to expand equitable access to that dual credit classes?
• Who will manage the dual enrollment program? How will students and parents be made aware of these new options? Is the program manager connected to a community of practice?
• Which students are most at risk of dropping out of high school or not being successful in college and who might most benefit from a dual enrollment program? For example, among students who dropped out of high school or failed to complete college, what courses did they take in ninth and tenth grades? What did courses did they take in eleventh and twelfth grades? Is there a particular moment where these students seem to lose their momentum?
• Can the LEA do a better job of tracking students post-high school progress? Could the LEA survey their recent alumni or meet with nearby colleges to understand how long students stay in college?
• What are high school students’ career interests? Can the LEA survey students to identify their career interests (i.e., for which staff could develop dual enrollment courses)? How can the LEA ensure that it hears from the students who are least likely to graduate and/or succeed in college?
• What dual enrollment programs do local college or universities offer other LEAs and that could be easily replicated?
• Could the LEA convert existing high school courses (e.g., AP courses) into dual credit courses? What would a college or university require to award college credit for existing high school courses? What qualifications do high school teachers need to qualify to teach at the post-secondary level?
• Where will dual credit courses be offered (i.e., at the high school, at the college, online, etc.)? When will the courses be offered (i.e., during the regular high school schedule, as a separate part of the school day, (such as half-day programs, or after school or evenings)?

The LEA decided to invest in developing dual enrollment programs at the high school (HS) in collaboration with an institute of higher education (IHE) to support the college readiness of their economically disadvantaged students. The program will be designed to ensure equitable access to dual enrollment courses through partnerships with leaders, families, and local colleges and universities; Additionally, the LEA decided to allocate resources to address the financial and other hidden barriers limiting participation and successful completion.  As the LEA explores guidance on Dual Enrollment, the sample activities on the Maximizing Federal Funds Examples under Career readiness proved to be a helpful start.

The LEA may consider spending the funds below to enact their learning acceleration strategy of developing a robust dual enrollment program to address the need identified in their data and needs analysis.

An LEA plans to develop a dual enrollment program at the high school. The total cost of the effort will be $85,000 (Table 1), which the LEA covers, first, through ESSER funds (Table 2), and later, after ESSER ends, through various funding streams (Table 3).

Table 1: Estimated costs of [activity]

Table 2: Funding allocation in 2023 and 2024

Table 3: Braiding of fund allocations for 2025 and beyond, based on the estimated percentage of students in LEA*

*Assumes all students in the high school will have an equal opportunity to participate in the dual enrollment program. Otherwise, percentages should be revised to reflect actual percentages of different categories of students participating.

Numbers are for representative purposes only. Costs will vary in later years, especially costs of the courses (as more students participate, course costs will rise accordingly).