CWU Trustee discusses the importance of offering early college credits

Central Washington University Board of Trustees member and alumnus Jeff Charbonneau wrote an editorial for the Tri-City Herald this week talking about the importance of offering early college credits to more high school students in the state of Washington.

CWU Trustee Jeff Charbonneau is the principal of Zillah High School and the 2013 National Teacher of the Year. He also holds three degrees from CWU.

The 2013 National Teacher of the Year, who has been an educator in Central Washington for the past 20 years, opens the piece by saying he has "witnessed the absolute transformation in confidence, identity, and sense of possibility that happens when those students earn their first college credits while in high school."

"It opens their worlds. It tells them that they belong, they can handle the work, and the future is there for the taking," he adds.

Charbonneau, who holds three CWU degrees and currently serves as the principal at Zillah High School, said the College in the High School program benefits hundreds of students every year, but only those who can afford it.

"A large number of students enrolled in our College in the High School courses do all the work necessary but do not receive college credit only because they can't pay. This is a stark inequity in our public education system," he says in the editorial.

CWU is home to the largest College in the High School program in the state, providing hundreds of high school students per year with a chance to take CWU courses from approved high school instructors without leaving their high school campus.

Charbonneau goes on to say that "removing College in the High School fees would create generational change" for Washington students. He also implores educational leaders around the state to act so that every student who puts in the work receives the college credits they have earned:

"As a state, and in our own communities, we must do everything we can to give our students the best shot at achieving their dreams and succeeding in the jobs being created."