The District partners with several post-secondary educational institutions, to provide College and Career Readiness opportunities for District students. Provided below is a description of these opportunities.

The District is seeking Board approval for Purchase request of $1,170,999 for FRCC concurrent enrollment programs and the approval of Career Pathways MOU.  The request concerns the concurrent enrollment programs ASCENT ($467,400), Career Pathways ($453,599), and Campus Select ($250,000) with Front Range Community College for the 2020/2021 school year. Approvals for other concurrent enrollment programs with Front Range or other postsecondary educational institutions, have been or will be submitted separately to the Board of Education, or did not exceed the Purchasing threshold of $250,000. The request for Campus Select may exceed the $250,000 threshold as actual enrollment figures are realized, requiring Board of Education approval.

All contracts included in this cover page have been selected by the District based on their overall educational value and the Assistant Superintendent of Secondary Schools has granted a vendor section exception as allowed under DJA – Purchasing Authority; therefore, no formal solicitation for these services has occurred.

Concurrent Enrollment (CE) Programs in Poudre School District

High School Select (HSS) locations: FRCC - allows students to enroll in college level courses taught in PSD high schools.  Students can accumulate college level credits or elect to opt out of the college credit. Due to convenience and ease of access, High School Select is the largest concurrent enrollment program by number of students and college credits received and has grown from 275 students in 2013/14 to ~1,250 students participating each semester of 2019/20. Front Range Community College (FRCC) is the primary provider of this program.  PSD paid $148.90 per college credit hour using the Colorado Opportunity Fund (COF) stipend as means of partial payment for tuition in 2019/20, tuition per credit hour is expected to increase in 2020/21 per FRCC a conservative estimate is a 3% increase per credit hour or $153.37 per credit hour.  FRCC reimburses PSD 105% of PSD’s tuition cost for courses taught by a PSD instructor (HSS Only).

On College Campus locations: FRCC (Campus Select), AIMS - allows high school students to elect to take college courses on college campuses while fulfilling high school requirements simultaneously.  On campus does not have the same ease of access as High School Select, the students in the program are primarily juniors and seniors. Approximately 130 students per semester took classes on college campuses during the 2020/21 school year.  AIMS Community College and Front Range Community College are the main partners.  FRCC accounts for ~97% of the enrollment.  The District only pays the community college rate per credit, which is currently $148.90.  The rate is expected to increase. The conservative estimate of increase is 3% per credit hour or $153.37 per credit hour. Together with COF money tuition on FRCC campus is fully covered. AIMS’ 2019/20 tuition rate of $67.00 per credit hour was fully covered by PSD.

Career Pathways locations: FRCC - is comprised of three career and technical career exploration programs taught by FRCC faculty on the FRCC campus. Pathways provides students with PSD elective credit as well as optional FRCC credit in addition to the opportunity to earn industry certifications.  The programs are two-hour blocks, one year in length and include Automotive Technology & Service, Medical Careers Exploration (certified Nurse Assistant), Welding Technology.  Students can earn between 7-15 college credits, depending on the program.  This program will serve 110 PSD students for the 2020-2021 school year, as stated in the FRCC Career Pathways Program MOU (see attached Contract 200148).

ASCENT (Accelerating Students through Concurrent Enrollment) locations: FRCC and AIMS - is a “5th Year Program” with FRCC that allows seniors to remain enrolled in high school and take a fifth year consisting entirely of college classes paid for by PSD. In order to apply for ASCENT, students must have previously completed a minimum of 12 concurrent enrollment credits. Students participating in ASCENT can complete an Associate Degree by the end of the program. PSD receives ASCENT specific per-pupil state funding that it uses to pay the college tuition. In 2019/20 PSD received 57.5 slots from the CDE.  PSD is requesting 60 slots for the 20/21 school year for a total of $467,400. (one full-time slot is $7,790.67, and 1 part-time slot is $3,895.34) PSD is anticipating 100 student applications for the 20/21 school year.