High School Guidance Office

California Community College Enrollment Information

 

General Information

Many students opt to use the California Community Colleges to supplement their education or to satisfy graduation and college entrance requirements. The following information will help you access this resource. IEM Charter Schools encourage students to enroll in community college courses only when it is deemed appropriate by the parent and the Educational Specialist.  University of California campuses may accept and enroll students from non-accredited high schools if they have a proven academic record from their local community college.  Students desiring entrance to a UC should be sure to read about the university requirements found in the guidance section of the school’s website.  All community colleges have posted the Intersegmental General Transfer Curriculum (IGETC) on their websites to aid students in selecting the appropriate, transferable courses.

 

The parent is responsible for enrolling the student by contacting the college enrollment office.  The parent must identify their student as being currently enrolled in a public high school.  Each community college is able to set its own standards for admittance, such as a minimum age, demonstrated ability, or professor approval.  It is important for parents to start this process early to meet application and enrollment deadlines. 


How to Access the Community College
Each community college has established its own school eligibility for concurrent high school students.  Please check with your local community college on their current policy.

 

College Tuition

Charter schools cannot pay for community college courses although many community colleges will waive the fees on for high school students.

Process for applying for enrollment of a charter school student at the local Community College:
Visit your prospective California Community colleges’ webpages to view their individual schools’ enrollment policy from this webpage www.cccco.edu .


Writing the Learning Record
It is not mandatory that classes taken by the student at the community college be documented on the learning record if they are taking at least 25 units not counting their college classes, and the courses are not needed for high school graduation.  The parent should be advised to consult with the university admissions office where the student intends to enroll after graduation to determine whether to place the college classes on the high school transcript.  Some universities may not accept for transfer any community college units that have also been used for high school graduation credit. 

No grades or units may be assigned for any course not listed on the learning record.

Writing learning records for a student attending college classes is not any different than any other learning record and follows the same general guidelines for writing any other high school learning record:

  • Learning records will include descriptions of the major objectives covered and activities used within each assignment period.
  • The documentation of learning should include content of what is learned but not where it is learned.
  • The amount of time that learning took place or the dates that learning took place for any activity; do not need to be stated.
  • Any references to religious content must be in the context of the study of world religions only.
  • A learning record can include nontraditional learning as well as traditional.
  • A properly written learning record should provide a record of student progress which may be used to support the life goals of that student.
  • Information present on the learning record should be organized and professionally presented.

Examples

Computer Programming 1B:  Julio listened to lectures, took notes, and completed lab assignments on the following topics: I/O Streams as an Introduction to Objects and Classes-streams and basic file I/O, tools for stream I/O, character I/O, inheritance among stream classes; Defining Classes and Abstract Data types-structures, classes abstract data types, classes to produce ADTs, alternative implementation of a class.  He was pleased to get 86% on his midterm.

Art 1B: Madeline listened to lectures, read her text, viewed other students’ samples, and created her own samples modeling the style of the following artists:  Tiffany, Rouault, Kollwitz and Barlach.  She made a mosaic tree out of tiles, created a stained ‘glass’ flower out of tissue paper, drew a sketch of a face using boxes for dimensions, and made an action scene with balloon people.

Physics: Brian listened to lectures, took notes, read the text, answered written comprehension and vocabulary questions, performed labs, and took chapter tests on the following topics:  Sound-the nature of sound waves, loudness, pitch, speed of sound, boundary effects; Music-consonance, overtones, musical instruments.  Labs conducted were on ‘the property of waves’ and vibrating strings’.

Assigning Credits

IEM Charter Schools allow students to receive credit for a high school course and to keep the in college units.  The college evaluates and assigns the college units.  The ES documents and evaluates the learning that takes place in the college course and then assigns appropriate high school credit under a similar high school class name.  The name of the high school class may or may not be the same name as the college class.  The number of high school units earned depends on the content of the class and what learning took place.  There is no specific formula.  The ES must use their professional judgment as for any high school course.  Consult with your ES Advisor if you need help with this.

Examples of classes.

  • PE – Student meets with class three times a week performing specific exercises.  HS Credit evaluation using time as the guideline: 12-15 hours= 1 unit.
  • Spanish – Student’s class meets three times weekly for Spanish.  ES compares the content of what the student has learned in the college Spanish class with what the student would learn in a regular high school Spanish class.  In this case, the high school student covers in one semester the equivalent of a yearlong Spanish class.  HS Credit evaluation: body of work comparison = 10 units.

If you are unsure what the course entails, get a copy of the course syllabus to help judge the content as you evaluate the student’s work.  The ES Advisor can also help the ES through the process of evaluating the high school unit value of a college course.  Students may not receive more than 10 units per course name, 5 units for the “A” semester and 5 units for semester “B”.

College Books

College bookstores are treated the same as any other vendor.  Approach your local community college bookstore and ask if they will become a vendor, then follow the established new vendor request procedure.  If the college bookstore is not a vendor, the book may have to be ordered directly from the publisher.  Ask parents to obtain the book list as soon after enrolling as possible.  Parents should get the complete book name, ISBN, price, and publisher’s name.  Books may also be ordered by the ISBN from Border books.  Often the college library has books that may be used until arrival of those ordered from our vendors.  Parents may also choose to spend their personal funds to purchase the books, but no reimbursement will be given.