Kevin Terry, director of school counseling at Rock Ridge High School, received the John “Jack” A. Blackburn Award for Ethics in College Admissions from the Potomac and Chesapeake Association for College Admission Counseling.
Terry, who began his career with LCPS in 1991, is credited with working to provide Rock Ridge students with free access to college courses through the Dual Enrollment program. In 2014, when Rock Ridge first opened and when Terry began his tenure with Rock Ridge, the school offered six Dual Enrollment courses, of which approximately 70 students participated. Today, Rock Ridge offers 16 dual enrollment courses, with 84% of the class of 2023 graduating with dual enrollment credits, and they earned these credits at no cost, said Terry.
“When we started looking into this, students were paying $30 a credit hour and they had to take a test to get into Dual Enrollment. We set out with ideas about how we could make Dual Enrollment free for kids and not bound by their GPA or by test results,” said Terry. “We were looking to remove barriers to college access.”
Terry created a partnership with Richard Bland College to provide Rock Ridge students with free access to college courses through Dual Enrollment, which allows students to meet requirements for high school graduation while earning college credits.
“You have to create opportunities where they exist,” explained Terry. “All the research shows that if you create a college-going culture, kids internalize that culture and move on to what they need to do in college. I am just trying to help find opportunities for students.”
Published May 17, 2024