BLOOMINGTON — As a junior at Bloomington High School, Jillian Gorham has spent her spring semester pursuing college credit without having to leave campus. 

“I absolutely would recommend dual credit, especially if we’re talking about this course,” Gorham said of Tom Waterson’s English class. “I use skills that are taught in this class in all of my other courses.”

Having already taken Advanced Placement courses, she said prefers the guarantee of earning college credit in a dual credit course, compared to having to take a test to determine whether or not students receive college credit. The dual credit courses are on par with their AP counterparts with an appropriate amount of coursework that puts students on a path towards higher education, Gorman added.

She also said she would like to see more dual credit offerings at her school, including options like genealogy.

"There’s a lot of useful tools, and I always tell my friends to do dual credit because it’s fun and I think it’s an appropriate amount of work," Gorham said. "Having that opportunity for college credit when you are putting yourself on a path of rigorous work, I think it’s deserved."

In Springfield, state lawmakers are considering a bill aimed at expanding the possibilities of dual credit education opportunities. The measure would alter partnerships between community colleges and high schools participating in programs, which give students credit for both high school and college, and change the requirements for teaching those courses.

House Bill 5020 was filed during this session of the General Assembly to amend the Illinois Dual Credit Quality Act, which passed in 2010 and was revised in 2018 to establish guidelines for high school students taking college-level courses for dual credit, accounting for both their high school and college transcripts.

The new bill, sponsored by state Rep. Diane Blair-Sherlock, D-Villa Park, aims to expand the options for students seeking to enroll in dual credit classes by allowing high schools to “college shop” outside their community college district if their community college partner can not provide a certain course.

The existing law requires community colleges to enter an agreement with high schools within their district when asked, and courses are taught by high school teachers unless the school does not have a qualified teacher present, in which case the community college partner is allowed to supply one.

Blair-Sherlock has introduced multiple versions of the amending bill, and the latest includes a change to instructor credentials that would require they hold a master’s degree to teach dual credit classes.

However, proponents of the bill have been met with some opposition, including faculty unions at Heartland Community College in Normal that say expanding dual credit has led to a decrease in faculty positions and concerns for the quality of education being approved under the college’s name.

Blair-Sherlock said she has had conversations with representatives of all stakeholders affected by this bill and spent the better part of 60 hours during the statehouse’s week off engaging with faculty members, union representatives and college administrators.

“We’re trying to work on a lot of the minutia and we’re trying to address as many concerns as we can,” Blair-Sherlock said. “Based on conversations already with the unions, the new revisions are all going to be neutral, but I can’t possibly make faculty at all 48 of the community colleges in the state of Illinois happy.”

Blair-Sherlock, who resides in the Chicago collar county of DuPage, said while the possibility of college shopping for high schools can be seen as a problem for some community colleges, in other parts of the state, this can be a real asset for high schools.

The lawmakers noted the suburban public schools in her district love this idea because it would allow them to utilize the next available community college without involving private institutions.

Blair-Sherlock also said it would be highly unlikely for a high school to contract a community college out of state for dual credit programs unless they are in a border district.

“If I didn’t think this was good for kids, I would have washed my hands,” Blair-Sherlock said. “I’m just trying to do what’s best for kids and what’s best for families. Education is a great equalizer. It’s how I got out of poverty, and I want other people to have the same opportunity.”

Since the Dual Credit Quality Act went into effect, Heartland has made partnerships with 17 high schools and three career centers which include Bloomington Area Career Center, Lincolnland Technical Education Center and Livingston Area Career Center, where college-level courses are taught to high schoolers.

Despite opposition from Heartland Community College’s two faculty unions — Heartland Faculty Association and the Heartland Adjunct Faculty Association — and a task force created from the unions, the bill was approved in the Illinois House’s Higher Education Committee last week, keeping it alive for a full House vote at a later date.

State Rep. Sharon Chung, D-Bloomington, who serves on the Higher Education Committee, was the only Democrat to oppose the bill during the committee’s 7-5 vote on April 3 after she had met with members of the task force.

Chung told The Pantagraph she knew the bill had seen pushback from community college faculty, and her conversations with Heartland educators led her to vote against it in committee.

She said she appreciated the work done by those who proposed the bill and what they are fighting for, “and a lot of these things are things that I believe in, but given the concerns that Heartland faculty had, I had to vote no on it in committee,” Chung said. “Hopefully the intention is that the bill with the second amendment will be brought back to the committee at some point.”

The Heartland task force collected more than 500 signatures and compiled a report finding the college has seen losses in enrollment and faculty positions from 2018 through 2023 as dual credit programs increased. The task force also found discrepancies in how Heartland’s College Now program evaluates teachers who provide instruction of college-level courses to high school students.

College Now is a program for high school students seeking early college opportunities at the college, including earning dual credit coursework at the college, online or in a high school classroom.

In the last five years, the number of College Now teachers increased by 35% while the number of full-time faculty decreased by 8% and part-time faculty by 7.5%, according to the task force’s report. This decrease was largely driven by a 14% reduction in full-time faculty and a 47% reduction in part-time English faculty.

According to a statement from the Heartland Faculty Association, English, math and history are subjects of particular concern as they relate to decreasing staffing at the college.

In addition to the loss of jobs, Bachelor said faculty members are primarily concerned with the quality of dual credit courses being taught in high schools and ensuring the syllabi of these courses match their counterparts still being taught at Heartland.

“We just want it done with quality at the forefront; we want it done in a way that’s going to help the teacher shortage and stop our own losses from happening at the community college and actually prepare students for real college-level coursework rather than just the high school class taught in their high school with their high school classmates with their high school teacher and just getting a stamp of approval from Heartland,” said task force member Jeremy Bachelor.

He said the task force has shared the potential solution of assigning adjunct faculty to dual credit courses in high schools to ensure the quality of the courses and help address the teacher shortages.

“We would love our full-time and part-time faculty members to be teaching more of these courses because at the end of the day, according to the law, they are our courses, we just don’t get to decide that much about them,” Bachelor said. “So many of them would have been willing to go in and teach a course in the high school rather than lose the course that they’ve been teaching for so long as a part-time instructor at Heartland.”

Blair-Sherlock said sending in community college faculty members to high schools to teach dual credit programs would not be simple since union contracts most likely prevent them from filling positions that would normally be provided to high school instructors.

College shopping could also affect the range of quality for dual credit courses offered in high schools, and the curriculum might not align with Heartland or another higher education institution when the course credit is transferred after high school, said Bachelor, an associate Spanish professor and a member of the Heartland Faculty Association’s leadership team.

Sarah Diel-Hunt, vice president of enrollment and student services at Heartland, said the college is also concerned about the quality of the dual credit courses and how well students are able to transition to a college or university.

“If the only kinds of credits (students) are getting are those taught in the high schools, it’s not that those credits are bad, but it’s that we want to have those transition points and they are also taking courses taught on the college campus by the college faculty,” Diel-Hunt said. “That’s an important kind of dual credit, not just to deal with the teacher shortage and not just to have community college faculty teaching those courses, but it’s important for the students’ transition."

Diel-Hunt said neither the Heartland administration nor the task force want to see high school students completing enough dual credit courses to receive an associate’s degree, essentially making them almost finished with college versus being college-ready.

The Heartland administrator said she does not believe the state legislature intended for high school students to be able to earn a complete associate’s degree or finish the first year or two of college in only the high school environment, but that is where the state may be heading.

“I think that sets the student up for failure because then that student potentially has never stepped foot on a college campus or taken a class by a college instructor before they’re a junior in college,” Diel-Hunt said. “I think that’s going to be problematic if they keep pushing that model and that model exclusively for dual credit.”

Blair-Sherlock said it would be unlikely for a high school student, with their workload of classes and extracurricular activities, to be able to complete the required number dual credit courses to achieve an associate’s degree before they finished high school, but she would like to know if a student has been able to do it.

Waterson, Gorman’s college English teacher at Bloomington High School who teaches English 101 and English 102 dual credit courses, said Heartland has been a good partner in guiding him and other teachers who are qualified to teach dual credit to ensure their courses align with the college’s curriculum.

Bloomington District 87 has been cognizant in providing as many opportunities to students for dual credit and allowing students to transition from high school to a college or university while getting accustomed to the workload of college level courses, said Waterson, now in his sixth year teaching dual credit.

Though instead of the traditional college design in which students attend classes part of the week, his students meet five days a week with an instructor they know and are comfortable with when taking these courses, Waterson said.

“It’s a nice transition between experiencing the support that a high school level class is able to provide but then also experiencing the rigor of a college class like Heartland provides,” Waterson said. “We get a little bit of freedom, but the assessments and things are pretty universal.”

Nicole Rummel, assistant superintendent of teaching and learning at District 87, said the district has been able to meet students’ needs through its partnership with Heartland. Although District 87 does not have a teacher on staff qualified to teach a dual credit course in communications next year, administrators are working with Heartland staff to still provide that opportunity.

“I feel like we have qualified staff and when we do, I’d like for them to teach the dual credit courses. They have the relationship with our kids, they’re here on campus, they know our procedures, our routines and our expectations,” Rummel said. “With our focus on offering the general core classes, we’ve been able to successfully partner with Heartland in meeting those needs.”

Dan Lamboley, director of secondary education at McLean County Unit 5, said the relationship between Heartland and the high schools has been very beneficial and easy to navigate. The district had 744 students enrolled in one or more dual credit courses in the 2022-23 school year.

Recently, Unit 5 has been able to add an introduction to animal science course for dual credit through Heartland for students interested in agriculture, and the administration has been working on ways the district can introduce more of the courses related to career pathways that Heartland offers, Lamboley said.

“If we have a new request for a dual credit course, (Heartland has) been very open and listening to us and trying to see if they could accommodate those requests,” Lamboley said. “For me and my perspective, when I work with Heartland I feel it’s been a very good partnership.”

Blair-Sherlock said in the end she wants to make sure students are given the opportunities they need to succeed and are safe, but there is always something new to consider when changes are brought forward by faculty or other interested parties.

"I want to take their concerns into consideration," Blair-Sherlock said. "They are the boots on the ground, I was a faculty member and I get it and I’m trying to do that but it is a process because every time we change something, let’s say because faculty likes it, now administration doesn’t."