Advanced Opportunity Grant Opens School-to-college And -career Paths For BHS Students
Author: Linda Kent, MT43 News Staff Reporter
Advanced Opportunity Grant Opens School-to-College and -Career Paths for BHS Students
Linda Kent
MT43 News Staff Reporter
Participation in Montana’s Advanced Opportunity Grant program is the latest tool in Broadwater High School’s efforts to help students move easily from school to work or college. While the district received $36,000 in grant funds, which can be used to cover the cost of everything from tuition to tools, the financial benefit to students and their families has been much greater.
Since September, BHS Counselor Mike Schnittgen said, students have saved more than $160,000 through BHS programs allowing them to participate in dual-credit or early college courses at discounted rates, gain work experience in a variety of fields, and advance towards completing apprenticeships for skilled trades.
The district’s efforts began in part as a way to keep local students in classes at BHS, rather than opting for online high school options. To do that, Heavrin said, her team has focused on ways to smooth the transition to work-life and education beyond the high school classroom.
Currently, around 45 percent of BHS juniors and seniors participate in some form of school-to-work or early college program.
“I only see it growing,” Broadwater High School Principal Sheri Heavrin said.
The grant supports Broadwater High School’s broader strategy to smooth the school-to-college or -work pathway for students and their families. The district has already provided a limited number of low-cost, dual-college-credit courses to students through Helena College of Technology. Students have also been able to participate in the One-Two-Free program, which lets high school students take two college courses at no cost. The district also offers an expanded offering of high school courses through the Montana Digital Academy. Many spend a portion of their week working in the community during the school day.
Heavrin said Gemma Loughery and Clint Watson, the high school’s career and technical education faculty, have worked with a Department of Labor and Industry program to help align the high school’s current course offerings with the apprenticeship requirements of several skilled trades.
She also noted that the grant funds could be used to pay the cost of OSHA certification for a student or to buy a set of tools needed for a pre-apprenticeship. The tools, like the certification, would stay with the student.
“It can save kids a lot of money,” Heavrin said.
Having students take their first steps into a job site for elective credit gives them the opportunity to learn skills like interviewing or the basics of being a good employee that are difficult to teach in a classroom setting.
One student is even utilizing grant funds to design, build, and sell a product, with a portion of the funds returning to the grant program.
“It’s a start,” Heavrin said. “You’ve got to meet kids where they are.”
