Pathways to College

ROCK HILL—The cooperative work being done by administrators and teachers at York Technical College and two area school districts will make it easier for many high school students to get to college, and it will significantly improve their chances of success once they get there. The career pathways project is a cooperative effort between the college and Rock Hill School District 3 and the Fort Mill School District in response to the Education and Economic Development Act (EEDA), signed into law by Governor Mark Sanford last year.

One of the goals of the EEDA is to transform the way South Carolina schools work by linking individual students' interests and goals with the courses they study in school. Beyond that, it requires that all students declare a career major in one of a number of different clusters of study. These “career clusters” are courses of study organized around different sets of occupations. For example, students interested in becoming nurses can choose a career major in the Health Science cluster and replace some general high school elective courses with courses specifically geared toward health care.

York Tech and others in the state are working with local high schools to guarantee that courses and curriculum are designed to make the transition from high school to college as seamless as possible and to remove stumbling blocks that may exist in that process. A large part of that process is aligning the career clusters being offered in local high schools with specific programs offered at the college.

York Tech began with a pilot project two years ago to test a strategy to reduce the skill gaps of interested high school juniors through basic dual credit courses in reading, math, and writing taught on the York Tech campus. The project proved successful in allowing high school students to enhance skills in core subjects that they would need for success in college.

The next step was to assemble a committee of educators—administrators as well as faculty from the college and the two school districts—to research and plan ways to mesh the curricula of the high schools with the curricula of York Tech's programs, to address the skill gaps of students that could make it difficult for them to succeed in college, and to find ways for high school students to experience college, and even earn college credit, before they graduate.

During the next school year, the committee will seek to include business and industry partners in the project. The program will be expanded to include other high schools in the York Tech service area, which includes York, Chester, and Lancaster counties.

For more information, contact Sherry Glenn, Associate Vice President for Academic and Student Affairs, at (803) 327-8016.

York Technical College . 452 S. Anderson Road . Rock Hill, SC 29730