Spike in Post Secondary Enrollment Options (PSEO) students

“Coming back from the pandemic, students have experienced so much. Some students are excited to come back to Park and others were like, ‘I’m over it.’ (They) know how to learn in different ways now — (they) know how to be independent,” Gardner said. “What we’ve been talking about with the counseling department is how to ensure students know all of the options, so that they can know what’s going to be best for them. There’s not one traditional style of learning that is going to be best for everybody.”

Assistant principal Derek Wennerberg said that the administration is focusing on encouraging students to use outside resources..

“As administrators, (we) need to be able to say, ‘how can we help facilitate those resources?’ Whether it’s within the walls through our DP program, our AP courses or PSEO courses, we need to grow. Through the pandemic, there are all these resources that are out there now at our fingertips,” Wennerberg said.

Long said that online learning during the pandemic gave her skills necessary to try asynchronous PSEO.

“I chose to do (PSEO) because I felt that I could handle college classes. The credits transfer pretty easily and will either let me graduate early from college or get me generally ahead in my credits,” Long said. “I do fully asynchronous PSEO and without COVID-19 I wouldn’t have considered myself as capable of time management. Zoom classes taught me how to manage my time properly and teach myself things that normally would be taught by my teachers.”

Counselor Barb Nelson said that COVID-19 brought an online aspect to PSEO that made it more accessible.

“Part of our teamwork is that we’re going to focus on PSEO, solely because students are able to do more asynchronous classes. Before COVID-19, most of the time (in) a PSEO class you had to (be) on-site,” Nelson said. “With people getting more comfortable with online classes and PSEO offering those classes, it makes it super accessible to students who previously didn’t have transportation. We’ve had higher and higher numbers of kids who are interested and want to do PSEO. We’ve always had a fair amount, but it’s just increased because of the accessibility.”

Junior Maggie Magdziarz-Rainey said she felt COVID-19 may have discouraged people from trying PSEO, despite the good opportunities.

“Many people didn’t want to go straight into college after the pandemic, especially with it being fully online,” Magdziarz-Rainey said. “People join (PSEO) once they learn about how much credit you can get from it. If they’re trying to do more advanced classes, it is a great opportunity. 90% of the time, colleges will accept you just because you’re showing interest. (Showing interest is) a big sign for colleges that if you tell people about how good the college is, more people will join.”