Thursday, September 19, 2024
SPRINGTOWN — Springtown Independent School District is paying tuition for high school juniors taking cosmetology courses at Weatherford College.
SISD Assistant Superintendent of Academics Tiffany Cano discussed this with the school board at its last meeting before trustees approved the tuition costs along with other action items under consent agenda.
SISD does not have its own cosmetology program so students are usually served through Weatherford ISD’s courses. This is made possible through an agreement between WISD and partnering districts. Cano said SISD typically pays $3,000 per student to be in the two-year program.
Cosmetology courses are taken during Springtown students’ junior and senior years. Cano told the board that though SHS seniors were set to take their classes at WISD, there was no room for the juniors.
With this news in mind, SISD officials considered alternatives, including offering cosmetology to students in-house.
“We, this summer, looked at multiple things we could do,” Cano told the school board. “We tried to look at renewing some of our building space we have around, what that would cost, and it just wasn't reasonable for what we were needing. We called around to other places; other districts were having the same problem. They had nowhere to send their cosmetology kids.”
Thankfully, Weatherford College representatives reached out to SISD and other districts having the same issue to offer space for the students within their program as early admissions college classes, not dual credit. SHS cosmetology juniors are expected to take their first level and second level classes at the college during this school year and the next in addition to over the summer, five semesters total. These classes are partly in the evening.
SHS students don’t just take cosmetology on a whim. Cano said they start planning their paths as freshmen.
“We were about to have to break some kids’ hearts and say, ‘I’m sorry you waited this whole time. We can’t do this for you. We don’t have the space for the program,’” Cano said at the board meeting.
The college’s help isn’t free, and in fact, this plan is about twice as expensive for SISD than utilizing Weatherford ISD was. After the board’s vote last month, SISD is set to cover the cost of tuition, instructional materials and lab fees for the two-year cosmetology program, which is $6,849 per student, using funds from the state’s career and technical education allotment. Each of the high schoolers or their families are expected to pay $500 toward this amount for the cost of kits, an expense they would’ve incurred through Weatherford ISD’s program as well.
It’s unclear how the next set of juniors, current sophomores, will access cosmetology courses moving forward.
“A cosmetology program is a need in our district, but we unfortunately do not have the space or facility to make it happen at this time,” Cano said. “The only other option would be to discontinue offering the program, which trains our students to earn a license to work in a possibly high-paying field straight out of high school.”
