Effort to expand Kirkwood regional centers revs up options for students

Tanner Fellinger's class recently finished a big project for the Monticello Fire Department by mapping all the fire hydrants in the city.

Fellinger, a Monticello High School senior, and his classmates plugged the locations into global positioning system receivers to create a precise map. The work took place not at the high school but at the Jones Regional Education Center in Monticello, which is run by Kirkwood Community College.

In a few years, students in Johnson, Linn and Washington counties may have similar opportunities. Kirkwood is in talks with K-12 school officials in each of those counties to establish regional education centers.

Fellinger is in the program's geospatial information systems academy and is exposed to a college-level subject and equipment he couldn't get at his high school.

“I really like it,” the 17-year-old said. “It's kind of like a hands-on environment. (Also), it gives you a feel of what college is like.”

Discussions for additional centers are in the early stages, but the general idea is to have schools send high school students to the facilities for specialty or college-level courses.

Students could take classes and use state-of-the-art equipment their home districts couldn't dream of offering. The Jones Regional Education Center has equipment priced at five or even six figures, like a computer-powered mill for metal work.

“The opportunities that are available to the students are far in excess of what we can now or will in the foreseeable future be able to afford to students,” Iowa City school district Superintendent Stephen Murley said.

Kirkwood President Mick Starcevich sees regional education centers as the wave of the future. That's especially true given tight budgets and warnings that state funding will remain flat in the near term.

“Rather than having five auto-tech labs at five different high schools and nobody can afford to really get it where you really need it to be, you have a central place here where you can keep that lab going all day with different students,” he said.

At the Jones center, about 240 students come from eight surrounding districts. Roughly half attend in the morning and half in the afternoon. Classes are taught by Kirkwood instructors or high school teachers, depending on the subject.

Each student participates in one of Kirkwood's career academies, in subjects like arts and sciences, construction trades, graphics, computer networking, engineering and more. Classes include macroeconomics, architectural plans and specs, engineering, automotive brake systems and computer networking.

They also take a college-level class and sometimes a regular high school class that a district doesn't have enough students to offer, Starcevich said. Students can earn high school and college credits for their work.

Monticello Superintendent Chris Anderson said sometimes students learn a certain career is not for them.

“Much better to find out at 17 or 18 (years old) you prefer not to go down a particular path than it is to make that decision at 21 or 22,” Anderson said.

The center also is used by Kirkwood for regular college-age classes and houses an alternative high school.

Iowa City and Cedar Rapids school officials are excited about the possibilities with science, technology, engineering and math classes, or STEM. Local and national educators have cast a spotlight on STEM courses in recent years, saying American students are falling behind their peers internationally.

The University of Iowa is interested in partnering in the Iowa City-area center, with Murley saying the university's faculty may lend their expertise. There has been talk of putting the center at the UI's Oakdale research campus, although that's far from certain.

Discussions thus far have included only the Iowa City school district, Kirkwood and the UI, but other school districts are expected to be involved.

Officials want to put the Linn County center in Marion and have it share space with a proposed recreation center. Cedar Rapids, Linn-Mar, Marion Independent, Central City, Mount Vernon, Vinton-Shellsburg and Springville school districts are among those interested, Starcevich said.

In Washington County, the Washington, Highland, Lone Tree, Mid-Prairie, WACO and Winfield-Mount Union school districts have discussed a center, said Washington schools Superintendent Mike Jorgensen.

Jorgensen said such an arrangement could be especially beneficial for small districts.

“When you make that a regional concept, you're able to have up-to-date, state-of-the-art equipment for the kids to work on,” Jorgensen said.

In Jones County, Kirkwood charges about $2,200 per student. The district can get additional money from the state that roughly covers the expense, although Monticello's Anderson said that is not the case in classes taught by a district's teachers. Kirkwood lowers the cost when those teachers are used, though, and Anderson said his district is not spending any more money than it otherwise would.

With discussion in the preliminary stages, there are no timelines for opening any of the three new centers, Starcevich said. He'd like to have the Marion facility open in 2014 and isn't sure on the other two. He said it was four years from when the Jones center was first discussed to when it opened.

While some area high school students take classes at Kirkwood's Cedar Rapids campus, school officials say pooling resources would create better opportunities in terms of facilities and course offerings.

Even for those classes offered now in high schools, many have low enrollments, making them targets for budget cuts, Murley said, but if a handful of students from each district come to a regional center for a course, they have a full class.

The regional facilities also would be closer to where students live.

“Like in real estate, it's location, location, location,” Cedar Rapids schools Superintendent Dave Benson said.