Each issue of this school year’s Triton Times, I’d like to highlight Triton High School’s concurrent course offerings available to our students. A concurrent course is a class that upperclassmen can take to earn both high school and college credit—FREE and right at Triton. Concurrent courses are taught by our own Triton teachers to sections made of only Triton students. Students earn anywhere from 1-4 credits for each class, depending on which class they take. Teachers must have a master’s degree and a minimum of 18 graduate credits in that field. This month we’ll look at the social sciences offerings.
Concurrent American Government is the equivalent of Rochester Community & Technical College’s (RCTC) POLS 1615 Introduction to American Government class. Successful completion of this semester course earns the student 3 college credits. This course is open to juniors and seniors who have a qualifying reading ACT or MCA test score or pass into college level on the Accuplacer test. We actually first offered this class as a concurrent ITV class in partnership with Zumbrota-Mazeppa many years ago (earliest we could find was 2000-2001). Most recently, we started offering this course in the fall of 2021 and it has been so popular that we consistently run two sections of the class every year since. Sam Storlie is the instructor and has been teaching it for the last three years. Mr. Storlie stated he enjoys challenging his students to think critically about their government and country. He believes the course is valuable because “it develops skills to be an informed citizen who can think from multiple perspectives when analyzing politics.” Further, he believes this class is “great for any student who wants to go beyond the status quo when it comes to examining politics.” One of Minnesota’s high school graduation requirements is a class on US government. Students who take this course are able to fulfill this graduation requirement while also earning free college credits (and oftentimes getting a college general education requirement taken care of as well as it fulfills Goal Areas 5 & 9 of the MN Transfer Curriculum).
One of our more recent concurrent class offerings is our concurrent Intro to Education Careers class. For this class we partner with Minnesota State University-Mankato and it is equivalent to their KSP 150 Exploring Careers in Education class. This spring semester class earns the student 3 college credits, upon successful completion of the course, and also applies towards Goal Area 2 of the MN Transfer Curriculum. In order to take the course, juniors must have a 3.3 cumulative gpa or higher and seniors must have at least a 3.0 gpa. We first offered our concurrent education class in the 2021-2022 school year and have been able to run the course the last two school years. Alli Horejsi is our instructor for the class and is excited to be able to teach the class again this spring. Mrs. Horejsi especially enjoys that this class provides students with opportunities to explore career options while working collaboratively with Cobra Care and Triton elementary, middle and high school students. “Fewer people are going into education-related career paths,” Mrs. Horejsi stated, “Offering a class such as this provides our students with a real-world opportunity working with our own student body. It provides an experience for us as a school to further promote this field while potentially growing our own future educators as well.” Any student who is interested in exploring careers that work with youth in any way, such as teachers, daycare workers, nurses/healthcare, social workers/counselors, law enforcement, and many more will benefit from taking this course. Or students who simply want to broaden their experiences and explore a field they haven’t yet considered will also find value in this course. Mrs. Horejsi shared a quote from a current senior who took this class last year, Lauryn Nauman: “Introduction to Education was a very beneficial class. I think this because it not only helped me with growing and learning in the education department but also helped me with general concepts of life. We went to many different grade levels which gave us all sorts of experience. This helped me see what grade level I was enjoying most. We also learned how to deal or cooperate with everyone. For example, we talked about different mental health disorders and how to make accommodations or be there for them. This is a big help no matter what occupation you go through. I am interested in business so learning to cooperate with anyone is an amazing skill to acquire. I recommend everyone take this class.” Students always make the best course promoters.
