Putnam Schools Working To Increase Monterey High’s Dual Enrollment Participation

Monterey High School continues to see lower dual enrollment participation than Cookeville or Upperman High School.

Personal Learning Supervisor Sam Brooks said that just seven percent of Monterey students participate in dual enrollment programs. That’s compared to Cookeville’s 11 percent. He said one of the biggest factors that play into this is logistics.

“When you open up the dual enrollment option for students and the dual enrollment campus is not right in town or not very close, then you’re looking at a situation where the students pretty much have to work online,” Brooks said. “Or drive, in Monterey, would be the twenty minutes down the hill to the Vol State campus which is the closest campus.”

Brooks said that a majority of Monterey students take courses online, which creates the issue of having limited space for students to do their work.

Brooks said that another issue at work is a lack of awareness. He said that some parents are wary of or do not even know about the options available to the students. Currently, Brooks said that the school is trying to address by getting information out to parents about the program opportunities in every way they can via social media, open forums, and meetings with Vol State.

“And then I still find parents who have never seen or heard anything about this so information is the big thing, just awareness across the board of what the opportunities are,” Brooks said. “And it seems like everyone is trying really hard to get that information out there.”

Brooks said the more students they can get participating in dual enrollment programs, the more opportunity there could be for increased funding in those programs.