More Palomar classes to be taught at Bonsall High School

The Bonsall Unified School District and Palomar College have a dual enrollment partnership agreement in which Palomar College instructors teach classes at Bonsall High School and the students receive both high school and college credit. The agreement will include additional courses for the 2017-18 school year.

A 4-0 Bonsall Unified School District board vote July 13, with Sylvia Tucker abstaining due to her desire for additional information, approved an agreement which will provide Screen Printing, Design for Print Production, Introduction to Photoshop, Multimedia and Social Networking, Beginning Algebra, Intermediate Algebra, College Algebra, and Trigonometry classes which can give Bonsall High School students both high school and college credit. An additional career technical education course will also likely be added once details are finalized.

"That's something that we're very excited about," said Justin Cunningham, who was the BUSD superintendent prior to his retirement July 31.

"We'll have a total of 10 courses," said Bonsall High School principal Lee Fleming. "We're just really excited."

Some of the graphic communications classes are already taught at Bonsall High School under a previous dual enrollment partnership agreement. The school district desires to add a robotics or similar course if a Palomar College faculty member is available to teach that class at the high school.

The Palomar College math courses will be new to Bonsall High School. "A lot of the senior math classes will be taught by Palomar College," Cunningham said.

Students who do not test out of a math remediation requirement must take math remediation courses. "We are trying to be proactive," Fleming said. "We're giving them these courses while they're still in high school."

Statewide approximately 70 percent of incoming college students require math remediation courses, which can be one of the greatest challenges for students. "That actually causes kids to drop out of college," Fleming said.

The addition of the college-level math courses to the Bonsall High School curriculum is expected to eliminate the need for the students to take math remediation classes. "One hundred percent of Bonsall High School seniors theoretically do not need remediation," Fleming said.

Although Palomar College will waive the registration fees for Bonsall High School students, the school district is still financially responsible for the costs of texts and other materials.

The math texts will have a 2017-18 cost of $171 for two semesters, so the cost for two texts for 55 students is approximately $18,000. The school district will use a college/career readiness grant from the state to cover the initial costs of the textbooks, which can be reused in future years with some additional purchases.