May 13, 2014
The four-year high school experience is common among most who go through the American public school system. However, a select few students have gone above and beyond to fulfill credit requirements, shortening their time time in high school by a full year.
The School Board requires that each student passes 23 credits by the end of their senior year. Though most students are short two credits after their junior year, students Brittney Kampfer, Carleta Nunez, Karissa Aldridge, and Kalen Atkins have taken on extra school work in order to fulfill class requirements.
“I just felt ready to go to college,” Aldridge said.
The motives to take on the extra workload differed for the newly-indoctrinated seniors.
Having doubled-up on her history and science credits sophomore year, Kampfer decided it made practical sense to put in a couple of extra hours in the upcoming months and save herself another whole year. “Senior year I would only need 2 elective credits, so I didn’t see the point of coming to school all year,” she said.
When Atkins saw the opportunity to leave the high school setting early, he became motivated to complete the necessary credits in the shortened allotted time.
“I wanted to graduate early because I didn’t like school, school isn’t really my thing,” Atkins said.
When the ninth grade class moved into the high school setting three years ago, both high schools in Lawrence added a seventh period to the school day, making it easier to fulfill the graduation credit requirement for many students.
In principle, by the end of junior year, if one has taken a 0-7 hour schedule for two of their three years, they would have the 23 credit hours to graduate high school. However, the students graduating a year early also took on outside courses online and through credit recovery.
“I had some credits I was behind on, and I did them in credit recovery, and I made up a lot of my classes,” Atkens said.
In order to get her English credits in, Aldridge took two blocks of it in school, and completed a third through credit recovery, which she was able to complete in a months time. She also took her senior government class through an online high school.
While Kampfer had a bit less ground to cover regarding her core credits, she attended “Can We Talk” meetings on late arrival mornings throughout the year to fulfill an elective credit.
Even though they started out the year with the class of 2015, the four seniors will, like the majority of their new class, will be following this year with post-high school education.
Kampfer plans on attending Highland Community College next semester. While she doesn’t have a definitive major yet, she sees the value in getting a jumpstart to her collegiate career. She describes the advantage as “getting your future started earlier, and getting out there and being ready to take on the world.”
Nunez also plans on continuing her academic path at Highland in the fall.
Atkins intends on getting his Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) licence after graduation, and making further career decisions afterwards.
Aldridge has decided on a similar pathway, however has already completed her CNA courses, and plans on continuing her nursing education at Neosho County Community College, where she will be working towards her registered nursing licence followed by further study for a professional degree in the health industry.
While these students could be accomplishing the same tasks a year from now, they have chosen to get a head-start on their career by getting out of secondary education early.
“I just feel like it’s one extra year that you don’t have to stress and worry about,” Aldridge said. “I feel like graduating early, you can just jump right into into it rather than having to wait another year for doing something that you really want to do.”
Zia Kelly 