Plymouth-Canton Community Schools to launch early middle college program

WCC one of two schools to serve as post-secondary partner
By Willow Symonds
Staff Writer

Plymouth-Canton is Michigan’s fifth biggest school district, having 16,000 students with 6,000 of them enrolled in their three high schools. However, opening their early middle college (EMC) program won’t necessarily increase their student population. Instead, they hope to provide their current students with more opportunities, according to the early middle college’s coordinator, Amanda Pelukas.

Based on their chosen major, EMC students will attend either WCC or Schoolcraft for their junior and senior years. The Board of Education continues to decide what majors belong to which community college, though Pelukas knows WCC classes will teach Mechatronics, General Business, Graphic Design, and Computer Information Systems to their students.

The COVID-19 pandemic halted plans for the early middle college. In spring 2020, the state of Michigan approved the EMC and recently approved funding for each student. The school will receive the same amount of money for each student, though the individual and overall amount remain unknown to the public.

Pelukas stressed how the early middle college will use existing campuses instead of building new classrooms. Because of this, the general grant won’t take money away from other Plymouth-Canton Community Schools students.

This school year, Plymouth-Canton’s Board of Education moved their plans forward and will begin student registration this spring. Depending on how many students enroll for the early middle college, their first year in operation will either start in fall 2023 or fall 2024.

Pelukas believes the EMC program will help their high schoolers “learn what it’s like to be a college student.”

“Most high schools don’t teach how to be a college student,” she explained to The Voice. “They teach how to be a highschool student. Lots of [college] kids struggle and don’t finish past their first year because they don’t know how.”

The early middle college students will spend their freshman and sophomore years at their respective high schools, taking the same classes as their peers. Their college may require an exception for one or two courses, such as a certain science credit for STEM majors.

Even after switching to college classes for their junior and senior years, the students can participate in their high school’s extracurricular activities, such as sports and seasonal dances. Taking college classes while still being connected to one’s high school will help students “get the extra support they need to succeed,” in Pelukas’ words.

WCC’s chief operating officer, Linda Blakey, said that Plymouth-Canton’s early middle college is unlikely to affect Washtenaw Technical Middle College enrollment. However, she stressed how WCC and P-CCS’s early middle college are still “separate entities. It’s not our place to make announcements.”

Washtenaw Technical Middle College, also known as WTMC, became one of Michigan’s first early middle colleges in the summer of 1997. Since then, over 200 early middle colleges have opened. Charter schools have steadily grown in popularity, but enrollment increased dramatically during the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, early middle colleges are unique from most charter schools in that they have to follow the rules of community colleges instead of creating their own.

“Students can discuss their after-high-school plans earlier,” Pelukas said. “I hope that, ultimately, all students graduate from the program with a certificate or an associate degree with their high school diploma.”

Plymouth-Canton Community Schools’ board of education will make more information available in the following weeks.

Statistics for WCC’s 2022-2023 school year, according to Linda Blakey:
WTMC students: 433
Dual-enrolled high school students at WCC: 1157
Dual-enrolled Dexter High School students: 78, the highest amount from any public high school

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