Larson: Dual credit opportunities give Glenbard students a head start on their futures

In Glenbard High School District 87, our overarching mission is to equip our students for success after graduation. One of our main avenues to achieve this goal is expanding early access to college coursework.

Glenbard’s Profile of a Graduate guides our work in how we prepare students for college, careers and life. The profile’s six competencies are the qualities we want to instill in all of our graduates. The core competencies are: self-empowered, communicates, thinks critically, embraces diversity, creates and collaborates. These are reflected in our rigorous courses.

With Profile of a Graduate at the forefront, Glenbard’s teaching and learning team has created a vision for increasing student access to free dual credit coursework in both general education and capstone experiences. These courses complement our strong Advanced Placement (AP) program. They both reduce tuition costs and speed up the time to college graduation.

Partners with College of DuPage

Our strong partnership with the College of DuPage has been a critical component over the years. In 2020, Glenbard became the first district in DuPage County to enter into a formal agreement with the College of DuPage to offer dual credit general education coursework in the following courses:

• English 1101: English Composition 1
• English 1102: English Composition 2
• Speech 1101: Fundamentals of Speech Communications
• Math 1218: General Education Math

The dual credit opportunities allow our students to experience early college coursework, taught by Glenbard teachers during the regular school day. Students earn three college credit hours per course.

These courses are widely transferable for college credit in Illinois and beyond. They are also part of the Illinois Articulation Initiative – a statewide transfer agreement among more than 100 participating colleges and universities in Illinois.

Capstone Experiences

We’ve continued to build upon our offerings in career capstone experiences as well. These courses are designed to give students a deeper dive into a particular industry or career and earn college credit.

In October 2022, the Glenbard Board of Education approved adding four dual credit capstone courses that allow students to explore the fields of education and horticulture:

• Intro to Education: Dual Credit 1100
• School Procedures: Dual Credit 1101
• Intro to Horticulture: Dual Credit 1100
• Intro to Sustainable Urban Agriculture: Dual Credit 2300

Our horticulture students are participating in field-based activities outside the classroom that provide windows into what future employment could look like in the career field. Glenbard students are also helping deliver instructional experiences at middle schools and elementary schools within our local sender school districts.

Additionally, Glenbard’s INCubator program has expanded to all four of our high schools in 2024-25 through a new course offering of Dual Credit Entrepreneurship 1161. This class is geared to students who are interested in careers in business, finance, management, or entrepreneurship, or starting a business of their own. Students work in small teams to develop a business idea. Mentors, coaches and the classroom teacher guide them through a hands-on, authentic entrepreneurial experience.

We’re excited for our first district-wide entrepreneurship final pitch contest on May 7, 2025, and we’re grateful for the continued support from local business experts and entrepreneurs.

Success in Numbers

• Since the start of our dual credit journey in partnership with COD, we’ve increased our dual credit enrollments from 154 in the 2020-21 school year, to 2,848 in the 2024-25 school year. This is an equivalent of $1.3 million in tuition savings for our students and families.
• Our comprehensive dual credit programming, in combination with our Advanced Placement (AP) opportunities, has resulted in the highest amount of early college credit earned in our district’s history. In 2024, 62 percent of Glenbard seniors graduated having earned early college credit, which represented a 16-percent increase over a four-year span.
• In addition, 78 percent of students from the class of 2024 completed an early college credit course before graduation, which is linked to better postsecondary success outcomes.
• In 2023, 40.3 percent of Glenbard seniors passed one or more AP exams during their four years (score of 3 or higher). This mark was 12.8 percentage points higher than the Illinois average (27.5 percent), and nearly twice the national average (21.7 percent).
• 86 percent of Glenbard’s graduating class of 2024 are planning to enroll in a college or university.

 Teacher Credentialing

The impact goes beyond just our students. We’re so proud of our teachers who answered the call to continue their graduate-level education and become dual-credit qualified instructors.

Through careful planning and articulation with COD, we built systems and structures that allowed our teachers to become credentialed and each of our high schools to be able to teach these college-level courses. We’ve built partnerships with Eastern Illinois University and University of St. Francis in Joliet to create teacher credentialing programs, with funding assistance provided by the district and the Glenbard Board of Education.

Looking to the Future

Four years into our journey, we are continually researching and assessing additional dual credit opportunities. The long-term vision is for our students to graduate with potentially half a year or full year of college credit, in combination with our AP class offerings. We want to empower students to get a head start on their futures, whichever direction it takes them.

David F. Larson, Ed.D.
Superintendent