Committee recommends AP Business addition and ECC senior pathways; board to consider in November

St. Charles CUSD 303 staff recommended that the district add Advanced Placement (AP) Business with Personal Finance to the high school course offerings and make two new Elgin Community College (ECC) senior-year cohort pathways — fire science and criminal justice — available to students, with the board scheduled to consider those recommendations at the November consent agenda.

Presenters said the AP Business offering aligns to student interest in business-related majors and would also fulfill the district's consumer education/personal-finance graduation requirement. "Our first recommendation is to add AP business with personal finance into our course offerings," a district presenter said. Staff proposed budgeting an estimated $6,000 for initial teacher training and noted a potential $8,000–$15,000 annual subscription cost if the district purchases a web-based resource for students.

District officials reviewed the suite of early college and career options already available and enrollment numbers they track: - AP courses: staff said the district offers 33 AP-level courses with 2,726 "seats filled" across all AP classes (the presenter clarified this counts course seats, not unique students). - Dual credit: staff reported eight dual-credit courses taught at the high schools with about 746 seats filled; partner institutions named included Elgin Community College (ECC), College of DuPage and the University of Illinois (the latter teaches an advanced-math sequence). - Articulated credit: articulated CTE agreements with ECC allow students to receive college credit at ECC if they enroll at ECC within 27 months of graduation and meet grade requirements; these credits appear only on the college transcript and do not affect the high-school GPA. - Fox Valley Career Center: staff said 76 district students are enrolled at the Fox Valley Career Center; the district provides transportation to that center.

Presenters also described two ECC cohort programs designed for high-school students that ECC has packaged to allow students to earn up to about 12 college credit hours in a senior-year cohort: a one-year fire science pathway (paired technical courses with general-education courses such as psychology and fundamentals of speech) and a criminal-justice cohort. Staff said these cohorts start the school day at ECC and that some classes require placement testing.

Student interest and regional partnerships Staff showed SchoolLinks data indicating health sciences and business-adjacent majors rank highly among students; presenters said that alignment supported the AP Business recommendation. Staff also described Region 110 collaborations — shared CTE programs hosted by neighboring districts — and said host districts determine available slot allocations. Transportation and scheduling remain practical constraints when students attend off-campus programs.

Costs and implementation notes - AP exam fees: staff said families currently pay roughly $100 for most AP exam fees; the district pays for limited teacher training and the district estimated a $6,000 training budget if the AP Business course is added. - Dual-credit cost-sharing: staff said families generally pay a $50 course fee for dual credit taught on district campuses; the district pays a reduced tuition to partner institutions. The University of Illinois dual-credit math courses currently cost the district about $400 per student per year.

Quotes from the meeting - "Right now ... we offer 33 AP level courses in our district. If we look at actual seats filled right now, we have 2,726 student enrollments," Dr. Monica Bailey said. - "Our first recommendation is to add AP business with personal finance into our course offerings," a presenter said. - "This would be a 1 year program for our senior students to engage in," a presenter said of the ECC fire science cohort.

Board action and next steps Staff asked the committee if the recommendations could move to board consent in November. Committee members expressed support and asked staff to continue work on communications, scheduling and capacity issues. Presenters said some program slots are proportionally allocated across regional partners and that host districts determine slot availability and selection criteria.

Ending The committee did not take a formal vote during the meeting; staff will bring the AP Business addition and the ECC senior pathways forward to the board consent agenda in November for action.