Columbus Municipal School District’s board of trustees voted unanimously to cut ties with the Golden Triangle Early College High School during its meeting Monday evening, citing additional costs to continue with GTECHS and a more pressing need to divert that funding elsewhere.
CMSD Superintendent Cherie Labat recommended the board not renew the district’s memorandum of understanding with GTECHS, which would have allowed the district to continue sending students to the early college high school on East Mississippi Community College’s Mayhew campus next school year. The district’s current agreement with GTECHS will end on June 30.
Labat said the move would allow the district to move more than $130,000 to programs within the district, such as dual enrollment and distance learning programs that allow students to take classes online.
As the spread of COVID-19 coronavirus forces schools to close and districts to implement distance learning, Labat said teachers can use online education to reach students who had been choosing GTECHS over Columbus High School because they are socially introverted or want smaller class sizes.
“I feel like a lot of the things that we developed with GTECHS are no longer relevant,” Labat said during Monday’s meeting, which was held over Zoom in accordance with social distancing.
GTECHS, which opened in the 2015-16 school year, allows select area high school students to take college courses and graduate high school with associates degrees. In addition to CMSD, it accepts students from Lowndes County, Noxubee County, West Point Consolidated and Starkville-Oktibbeha Consolidated school districts on an application basis. The school boasts small class sizes and a stringent application process specifically geared toward students who don’t thrive, either socially or academically, in traditional high school environments.
But Labat said the program’s cost will increase next year from $100,000 to $130,000, not including transportation. There are more than 220 students enrolled at GTECHS, 42 of which are CMSD students.
“If you want to put that in perspective, we serve 141 students for our dual enrollment program and our budget (for that) is $100,000,” Labat said. “So the numbers I want you to pay significant attention to is we’re serving 42 students for a budget of $130,000 for dual enrollment and … smaller class sizes.”
Board president Jason Spears pointed out $100,000 for 141 students equals roughly $709 per student. For another $130,000, plus the money the district would save on transportation and some other costs, he said, the district could add more than 200 students to its own dual enrollment program.
But some board members questioned whether CMSD’s schools are the right option for the type of students who attend GTECHS. Telisa Clay Young pointed out GTECHS targets at-risk students and students who would be the first in their families to attend college. Josie Shumake said she had interviewed students who attended GTECHS last year, though she said none were from Columbus.
“The big takeaway for me was these, at least the students that I interviewed, really would benefit from smaller classes,” Shumake said. “Most of them … seemed to be the kinds of students that might be bullied. So I just want to put that out there. Those weren’t CMSD kids and I don’t know if that would apply across the board.”
Labat said she had considered those factors, pointing out CMSD’s teachers are more focused now on at-risk students than they were four years ago. She added socially introverted students are exactly the sort of students who might thrive taking some classes online.
“They could have great teachers online, interactive, and not necessarily in a classroom with anyone,” Labat said.
GTECHS students from Columbus will finish out the year at the early college high school and go back to attending CMSD schools next school year, Labat said.
East Mississippi Community College President Scott Alsobrooks said he’d had “no idea” CMSD was planning to take its students out of GTECHS and that he hadn’t gotten a chance to talk to Labat about the matter.
“I look forward to talking with (Labat) and seeing what their strategy is but I really don’t know much about it,” he said.
He added that GTECHS boasted a graduation rate in 2019 of more than 97 percent.
However, he said he was still looking forward to working with CMSD, particularly with dual enrollment.
“I think there’s a great future for young people, particularly on the technical side,” he said. “Folks that want to go to work sooner rather than later and get some skills while they’re in high school, those type students. We want to work with Columbus and all our districts on helping students get in technical fields early.”
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