The Center of Excellence in Leadership of Learning at the University of Indianapolis received a $10 million donation from the U.S. Department of Education which will impact 20 rural high schools in Indiana.
CELL is an education nonprofit that works across the state of Indiana to bring leadership and progressive learning to schools, Director of the Rural Early College Network at CELL Janet Boyle said. The U.S. Department of Education gave CELL a grant in 2019 to start the first iteration of RECN in five high schools. This program aims to help first-generation students, English language learners and disadvantaged students. The first grant provided ninth and tenth grade students with extra help in math and English so they could succeed in college classes their junior and senior years, Boyle said. The program also equipped students with financial planning and workload management skills. Director of Early College at CELL Steve Combs said he was a principal during RECN 1.0. His school got $150,000 over five years due to the program, he said.
The second iteration began Jan. 1 and will last five years. The five original high schools will serve as mentors to the 15 new high schools added in RECN 2.0, Boyle said.
“The 15 partner schools that will be selected are all going to be working toward becoming endorsed and setting up a robust early college program in their high schools for their students,” Boyle said.
There are three additions to RECN 2.0. Boyle said they will be adding a teacher leadership academy program to help teachers learn effective teaching and leadership. They will also start a program called CART, or Counselor Action and Renewal Team. Members of CART meet four times a year to help provide support to the counselors. Boyle said Indiana has one of the worst ratios of school counselors to students, with 695 students per one high school counselor on average. She said the recommended ratio is 250 students per counselor. To decrease the pressure on counselors, Combs said the funds will also go toward ensuring teachers and counselors are properly paid for the work they are doing.
The third prong, Boyle said, is a partnership between Ivy Tech and CELL. Ivy Tech will hire “college connection coaches” to go to the schools once or twice a week. They will assist the students in enrolling for classes and financial management so they can afford college when they graduate.
“Most of the kids that leave this program earn the 30-credit Indiana College Core [degree], which is equivalent to their first year or their general education core, and some will even have associate degrees,” Boyle said. “But they are the kinds of kids that finish college and even stick around for graduate school, so UIndy would be smart to market to those kids going forward.”
Boyle and Combs both said they have high hopes for RECN 2.0 after the success of the first grant. Boyle said RECN 1.0 helped save students and their families over $15 million in tuition costs. She said Indiana is experiencing declining rates of students who go to college, especially in rural areas, and this program will provide further support for these students to access college and succeed there.
“I just think it’s a great opportunity because more education is good for the students, their families, their schools and their communities,” Combs said. “Ultimately it’s good for our state and the nation.”
