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Greene County’s community college partnership with CCBC in peril

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WAYNESBURG – The criminal justice program established by Greene County’s five school districts and Community College of Beaver County is in peril after the course attracted too few students for its inaugural fall semester when Central Greene abruptly pulled out of the partnership earlier this year.

John Menhart

Greene County and CCBC officials had hoped to attract at least 25 students for the dual enrollment course after the partnership was announced in November, but this year’s class has been canceled with the hope it now can be implemented in fall 2019.

John Menhart, the outgoing Carmichaels Area superintendent who planned to work as a liaison for the program, said 14 students from Jefferson-Morgan, Mapletown and West Greene applied for the course, leaving it short of the goal. No students from Carmichaels applied and Central Greene’s departure in March, a month before the application deadline, left officials with no choice but to put the program on hold.

“Personally, there’s disappointment because I thought it would be a great opportunity for these kids,” Menhart said.

Central Greene Superintendent Helen McCracken, who was appointed to her position in an interim role in September before being hired full-time in November, said she had too many questions about the program to feel comfortable about including her school district in the partnership.

“I had some things that were unknown to me and feel like I didn’t have enough time to make a sound decision for the school district,” she said.

Tara Kinsell

Helen McCracken

Some of those concerns included who would be busing the students from a meeting place at Greene County Career & Technology Center, which is next to Waynesburg Central High School, to Waynesburg University, where the classes were to be held. McCracken also wanted a needs-assessment study conducted to see how many students would be interested in criminal justice, although she said Central Greene never attempted such a process with its own students. She also was unsure whether Waynesburg University professors or CCBC instructors would be leading the class, although an initial agreement stipulated the program would fall under the umbrella of Beaver County’s curriculum and proposed usage of the university’s facilities, including its “crime scene house” on campus.

“It seemed out of order. The sequence wouldn’t go in the order I expected,” McCracken said. “It was an incomplete process. I didn’t want to get kids excited about the criminal justice program that doesn’t have all the bumps in the road smoothed out.”

McCracken first learned of the program during a meeting in October – a month before it was formally announced – with the four other superintendents, who had been discussing it with her predecessor, Brian Uplinger, over several months.

“I have about a decade worth of experience working in higher education,” McCracken said of her time spent as an assistant professor at California University of Pennsylvania and director of graduate programs at Waynesburg University’s Southpointe campus. “I viewed it differently than they did.”

University spokeswoman Ashley Wise said they “explored an agreement” with CCBC, but it was never finalized.

The proposed partnership followed the May 2017 departure of Westmoreland County Community College’s satellite education center at EverGreene Technology Park following years of declining enrollment. Greene County Commissioner Blair Zimmerman said the county wanted to offer high school students and graduates another opportunity to attend college, prompting the negotiations with CCBC. The commissioners announced the partnership Nov. 16 and said the county would be providing a $50,000 annual grant for the program, the same amount given to WCCC.

“Parents were calling us and telling us they wanted an opportunity for their kids,” Zimmerman said.

He thought the criminal justice course would be a good starting point for the program, which could eventually expand to other career paths, such as nursing. Zimmerman thinks the partnership can be restarted next year with more time and planning.

“I don’t think it makes Greene County look bad, but I think it might make a certain school district look bad,” Zimmerman said. “We, as the commissioners, did a lot of work to put this together and secure the funding for it. We responded to the public because they wanted other opportunities.”

Joyce Cirelli, the dean of high school academics and dual enrollment at CCBC, said the community college had several meetings with the school districts last year and Central Greene was “given ample opportunity to make a well-informed decision” about the program. She praised the Greene County commissioners and Menhart for moving the initiative forward and expects the program will be successful next year as they try to boost community awareness of the course.

“The game is still on and we still look forward to working with them and hope to revisit it,” Cirelli said.

Others are also hopeful the program can be implemented for fall 2019 with more preparation and cooperation from all of the school districts.

“Going forward, we do want this to succeed,” Menhart said. “We are hoping to grow it from criminal justice to other fields.”

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