Graduating Hot Spring County High School seniors earn degree from CWC

At the 2022 Hot Springs County High School graduation, two students also received a degree from Central Wyoming College in addition to their high school diploma.

Jacob Randall and Lee Grimm, took dual credit courses for the past four years and their efforts and achievements allowed them to get an associate’s degree. Even though Randall and Grimm started taking college-level courses in their freshman year, it was a surprise to both of them that, in their senior year, they would be able to become graduates of a community college.

Principal Breez Daniels spoke with enthusiasm about these students’ journeys and how this opportunity helped them go farther than expected.

Daniels said, “What we really are excited about is that our students, who are doing really well academically and want to go above and beyond, have that opportunity through our partnership with Central Wyoming College.”

Daniels added, “We’re able to offer them online classes. And then many of our classes here at the high school are also offered for what we call concurrent enrollment used to be called dual credit.”

“But those concurrent enrollment classes are with our in-person instructors, our high school instructors who have master’s degrees in their specific fields and are able to teach those college-level classes on site. And so we’re really proud of the fact that our high-achieving students, our students who excel and have an avenue in which to grow and actually attain an associate’s degree while they’re in high school.”

Daniels continued and said, “We’re really proud of them because we know it’s a lot of extra effort. And we know that they have to put a lot of hours in outside of school in order to complete those courses. In, you know, at the rigor that they are offered. And so those students get class periods during the day for online classes so they can go to the library and study.”

Jacob Randall set his goal high as he desired to become his class valedictorian. The college-level classes are weighted on a GPA system using a five-point scale, instead of the traditional four-point scale. Randall said, “I wanted to be valedictorian, so I started taking those classes to get that. I didn’t actually intend on getting a degree. I didn’t know I could, but it just kind of happened that I took enough classes that I was able to have classes in the right areas.”

Randall’s classes and associate’s degree were in interdisciplinary studies with STEM and Social Studies. Randall explained about the work he did in these classes and said, “it was slightly more challenging because it was also college credit. So, but I don’t really have any idea what it was like without doing that, so I can’t give a good comparison.”

Some of Randall’s courses covered different areas. Randall said, “I took political science. American and Wyoming governments are both credits. I took medical terminology, human biology, psychology, sociology, and things like that.”

Lee Grimm’s experience in high school and taking dual credit courses was a different journey than Randall’s. Grimm explained, “I started in my freshman year taking a college computer science class. But they can’t actually transfer that class’s credit through freshman year. So that class was dropped from my total college transcripts. I didn’t actually get any college credits for that. But technically, my freshman year was my first year going to CWC through online classes. But my sophomore year was the first year all the credits were actually able to go on to my college and high school transcripts.”

Grimm added, “I didn’t actually get my associate’s degree in a specific field of study. Instead, I got it in interdisciplinary studies of health sciences and STEM, where instead of having a specific field of study that you study for or such as biology or math, a specific degree in that way is more of a broad type of understudy type of thing.”

Both Randall and Grimm wanted to encourage their fellow underclassmen about the opportunity to earn an associate’s degree while in high school. Randall said, “Take advantage of it because a lot of schools, you can’t do it. Take the college credit class as long as it goes along with high school credit. Take advantage of it, but don’t stress yourself out. By giving it a try, you ultimately have a credit score that still transfers with whatever you’re doing.”

Grimm added, “If anybody ever plans on doing all these college courses that our high school is offering, then they should definitely do it because it’s only been a recent opportunity to take all these college courses. That’s why Jacob and I are the first ones to actually graduate with these degrees because previously it wasn’t really able to happen. And so anybody who wants to pursue this, they should definitely do it.”

Principal Daniels described some of the different opportunities that high school offers and how they can add to the experience of taking college credit courses at the same time.

Daniels said, “We have a really strong vocational program and a really strong fine arts program. And then we have that academic enrichment for the students who just want to continue to go forward academically. And regarding Lee and Jacob, I think the thing that stands out about both of them is that they’re just super hard workers. They’re academically motivated. And they were willing to do a lot of independent work. And it’s really paid off for them. We are really proud of them.”