Ceres High School junior Miranda Zepeda is totally sold on the dual enrollment program which allows her to earn community college credits on her Ceres campus.

So far she has taken eight Modesto Junior College dual enrollment classes, two of which were offered during her day at Ceres High. The others she took outside of high school hours.

“It’s a multi-faceted program that allows students to gain college credits all while being in high school fulfilling those requirements,” said Zepeda. “I like that it’s taught me valuable academic skills like time management.”

For five years now Ceres Unified School District has partnered with MJC to offer dual enrollment at CHS, Central Valley and Whitmore Charter high schools. Currently under 200 students take advantage of the program.

“It’s just been growing and evolving from its first inception,” said Rita Menezes, Ceres Unified School District’s director of secondary education. “And obviously we have way more student participation now than at the beginning and we’ve developed some really nice lines of communication with MJC.”

The program allows students like Zepeda to get a jump start on earning credits before graduating high school. She plans to go into the medical field and has taken courses named Introduction to Public Health, Health 101, Women’s Health and Introduction to Kinesiology. Those are on-line classes taught remotely in the classroom setting in Ceres. A credentialed CUSD teacher, while not teaching the course, is present to oversee student progress and make sure they are budgeting time wisely, and corresponding with the MJC professor.

The program adds a minimum of three extra hours to Zepeda’s week but she is focused on her education and doesn’t mind. 

“My goal is to at least get 30, 33 units. My goal right now is fill out as many categories in the IGETC.”

IGETC stands for Intersegmental General Education Transfer Curriculum, a series of courses that community college students must complete to satisfy most freshman/sophomore-level general education requirements before transferring to a California state university.

Zepeda is unsure of what area of medicine she’d like to pursue but the passion comes from her life experience.

“I just really feel enjoyment when I help others and I feel like that’s something that’s a really rewarding job being in the medical field. I have a blood disorder currently, a medical condition that’s made me really involved in hospitals recently and I’ve been seeing the other side and other perspectives from hospitals and it’s really an ambience I would really like to be in.”

In January CUSD held an orientation for parents and students to introduce dual enrollment. Students are wrapping up balloting for what courses they want to take next school year.

CUSD targets 10th through 12th graders for dual enrollment but is seeking to expand opportunities to freshmen.

“Ninth grade is a little tough because it’s that transition year where sometimes students struggle,” said Menezes, “but I personally believe that if we select the courses carefully we can select courses that ninth-graders can be successful in.”

While any high school student may take MJC courses in their high school years, another benefit of dual enrollment is that it guarantees Ceres students a block of seats without having to compete against tens of thousands of other community students seeking courses.

“Miranda is unique in that she’s taken MJC classes both outside of her school day and on her own,” said Menezes. “Not every student who takes MJC courses during the school day will then also take it outside, so she’s a unicorn in that way. We have way more students who do it during the school day than outside the school day. It just makes more sense for them.”

Funded by a College Career Access Pathway (CCAP) grant, the agreement with MJC opens up CUSD students to electives not previously offered on Ceres campuses, such as Sociology, while earning college credits. Menezes said Sociology is especially useful as it helps students meet some of their general education requirements in college.

A balancing act takes place between CUSD and MJC to ensure that a course is worthwhile, meaning a full class of at least 30 students attend at all three campuses.

“Annually we’re able to get together with MJC leadership and figure out what course offerings we think enough of our students would be interested in that we could float a course at both schools,” said Menezes. “Some courses are more popular than others. We want to make it worthwhile for them so our goal is always fill a section, to be 30 students per campus.”

Some of the more popular courses offered in Ceres include Child Development, Sociology, History 102, Criminal Justice, Ethnic Studies, American Sign Language (which counts as a foreign language).