School District Partners with College to Offer Dual Enrollment

Williamsburg County School District administrators and Williamsburg Technical College instruction professionals have worked together to offer dual enrollment to area high school students at the three county high schools in a new and high-tech manner.

According to Lori Cumbee, principal at Kingstree Senior High School (KSHS), her school will be broadcasting dual enrollment courses via two-way telecommunication to C. E. Murray High School and Hemingway High School beginning Monday, August 20. Courses to be offered by KSHS teachers for the district’s brightest and best students include Linda Taylor’s English 101 for the first nine weeks and English 102 for the second nine weeks of the first block, and Chakrapani Sethumadhaven’s Math 110 (college algebra) during third block.

Thirty students have been identified by the district to be enrolled in the dual enrollment courses this year. According to Williamsburg Technical College dual enrollment coordinator Margaret Chandler, the dual enrollment program was instituted three years ago to provide area high school students with the opportunity to get high school and college credit for specific courses which will provide honors credit at the high school level and, at the same time, provide transferable two- or four-year institution credit. The benefit, in addition to challenging the students’ minds, is to give twice the credit for one giant effort and, at the same time, give college freshmen a leg up on their academic careers.

Last academic year, all eight of the area high school’s top honor graduates had been enrolled through their schools in the Williamsburg Technical College dual enrollment program and through traditional college enrollment at the College.

In addition to the county school district’s coordinated effort for dual enrollment offerings, students at Williamsburg Academy in Kingstree will also be taking English and math dual enrollment courses this coming semester on their campus taught by Charles DeMay and Willie Bryant.

Dual enrollment courses that have been offered by Williamsburg Technical College through area high schools include English composition I and II, algebra, statistics, calculus, chemistry, and psychology. In some cases, dual enrollment students choose to attend non-dual enrollment classes on the Williamsburg Technical College campus that are for college credit only to get ahead even further in their college careers. Some dual enrollment students are able to defray the cost of the courses they take by completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) and applying for lottery tuition assistance.