Overview
Supporting students in dual enrollment with interventions that are equity-focused and tailored to students’ various learning environments (high school site, online, college campus, alternative programs, juvenile facilities, adult schools, etc.) is a key ingredient in an effective dual enrollment partnership. In a meaningful dual enrollment experience, students gain content knowledge and a boost of confidence as they succeed in college courses. Even though high school student success rates in college courses are often higher than those of adult students, partnerships should ensure they are designing opportunities that set students up for success both during and after high school.
Supporting Students in Dual Enrollment
Student supports encompass a range of services and resources designed to help students succeed in college. These supports include high-quality instruction, academic advising, tutoring, financial aid counseling, career services, mental health counseling, disability services, basic needs support, undocumented student navigation support, and extracurricular activities. Well-designed supports address the varying needs of diverse students. By providing comprehensive wraparound support for students, community colleges strive to enhance student retention, graduation rates, and overall educational outcomes.
High school students, like many first-generation college students, may struggle with navigating college systems and norms, feeling a sense of belonging in the college classroom, and balancing educational demands with work and family responsibilities. Findings from a recent study on dual enrollment underscore the importance of including touchpoints with counselors in a college and/or career exploration course and in regular check-ins at key points of the semester. The study included interviews with 58 former dual-enrolled students in Los Angeles, and over half of the respondents indicated that counselors had been their primary source for both encouragement and information. The research fellows conducting the study were themselves former dual-enrolled students, and their work is summarized in the memo Navigating Dual Enrollment: Los Angeles Scholars Share Their Insights on What Matters Most for Success. Beyond ensuring that students have access to a counselor, dual enrollment partnerships can build in student supports throughout the student experience.
Partnerships can extend beyond the college and high school to include families and community groups to provide support for students. East Los Angeles College, for example, has created an ecosystem of student support that includes community-based organizations, parent centers in partner high schools, and a Family and Community Engagement Services Center on campus.
Importance of Creating a Sense of Belonging
Proactive outreach and recruitment efforts are essential for students who don’t see themselves as college-going. Students of color—including Black, Indigenous, and Latine students—along with students from other groups that have historically been underserved in educational opportunities may be fighting social narratives that have led to feeling excluded from postsecondary education. By focusing on and engaging students from historically underserved or underrepresented groups in outreach and recruitment, educators can make it clear that students are welcome and that they belong in college. Creating this sense of belonging for high school students enrolling in college courses requires holistic support systems that start with outreach and include wraparound academic, social, and basic needs support. This holistic support is crucial for students to feel confident that they belong in college and that the educators involved are committed to their success.
Colleges have many ways of making students feel welcomed and creating a sense of belonging. Providing instructors professional development in culturally relevant pedagogy can better serve students of color. College learning communities like Puente or Umoja create community and belonging through culturally relevant pedagogy, focused case management by counselors, and events focused on supporting students from underserved populations. A 2024 Umoja report found that Umoja students had higher first-year persistence and success, and greater degree attainment within three years, compared with their non-participating Black peers. The report also found that Umoja students reported significant improvements in self-concept, sense of belonging, and academic self-efficacy, with Black Umoja students showing particularly high gains compared to non-Black Umoja students. Other examples of how colleges are providing holistic support for students include basic needs centers, veterans centers, LGBTQ+ centers, undocumented student services and centers, and other culturally specific resource centers. Connecting dual-enrolled students to these resources can support their sense of belonging by showing them that the college has a dedicated place with caring staff to meet their needs.
Partnerships around the state are currently in various stages of exploration of what it means to extend culturally affirming learning community principles and practices to high school students through dual enrollment. Some partnerships are bringing high school students to the college campus to access resources, while others are bringing resources—including culturally focused learning communities—to the high school campus.
Napa Valley College’s Pride Learning Community
Napa Valley College (NVC) is developing its first Early College program with a focus on serving the LGBTQ+ community. The LGBTQ+ Pathway offers students three college courses and an internship that articulate to college programs. The LGBTQ+ Pathway also has opportunities to come to campus to meet the NVC students in the Pride Learning Community and visit the college’s Pride Center to learn about LGBTQ+ resources and a community available to them as a college student.
Examples of Student Supports in Dual Enrollment
Dual enrollment partnerships across California are supporting students in a variety of ways. Below are promising practices emerging from the field:
Support in choosing a pathway
Partnerships can prepare students to choose a pathway by building college and career exploration and education planning into the beginning of each student’s dual enrollment journey. See the Designing Pathways section of this guide for more information.
A regular point person helps students navigate college processes and access resources
High school districts and colleges across the state have created dedicated dual enrollment positions such as a coordinator, an adviser, or a counselor who is responsible for supporting dual-enrolled students through the application and enrollment process. This person often serves as the point of contact for students, operates as the student’s advocate when enrollment issues come up, and assists students in navigating dual enrollment opportunities. They can also connect students to supports such as virtual tutoring, an especially helpful strategy for students taking online classes.
Regular student check-ins with an adviser or counselor
Ongoing check-in meetings with a counselor or adviser ensures that students have an opportunity to flag challenges they may be facing that are threatening their success in the course. These meetings can also serve to support student navigation and understanding of the additional courses that they will need to earn certificates and degrees both during and after high school. Keeping students regularly connected with a counselor or adviser is key to supporting their retention and success.
Mendocino College’s Student Ambassador Program
Mendocino College serves a large area with dual enrollment offerings. As the college’s dual enrollment team expanded their efforts to include geographically distant high schools, it became more challenging to ensure that all students knew about the services offered through the college and how to access them. To solve that problem, they started a student ambassador program at each of their partner high schools. Mendocino High School hires two students at each high school, one junior and one senior, trains them in the support services offered at the college, and employs them throughout the semester to serve as liaisons between the college and the students. The ambassadors attend the first day of class, teach students how to access the Canvas learning platform, and inform them about available resources such as basic needs support, mental health counseling, and more. These student ambassadors serve as resources throughout the semester for dual-enrolled students.
In its second year, this program is now supported by the local K-16 collaborative, which trains the ambassadors and builds community among all of the ambassadors in the region. This year, the collaborative is planning a summer retreat for the student ambassadors where they will participate in team-building events and visit Sonoma State University to learn more about available programs and pathways.
Connection with learning communities such as Puente or Umoja
Learning communities provide a cohort of students opportunities to build community and participate in activities outside of the classroom. For first-generation college students and students historically-underserved in education, these community-building opportunities can provide introductory college experiences that help build a sense of belonging in college courses. Developing learning communities that meet the needs of the students who are furthest from opportunity is an effective equity intervention to increase success and retention.
Embedded tutors and peer mentors
Tutors or peer mentors who are embedded in a dual enrollment program can provide both in-class and out-of-class support for students. They can assist students who need additional support and intervention. In the classroom, faculty can leverage peer mentors and tutors by assigning them to work with specific groups of students. Outside of class, peer mentors and tutors can develop more relaxed and informal relationships with students than those typically found between students and faculty. This provides students with a comfortable go-to person to ask questions and seek support. Colleges can hire and train student workers to support this work.
Berkeley City College’s Near-Peer Mentor Program
Berkeley City College (BCC) has developed a near-peer mentor program that brings Umoja and Puente students to serve as mentors in dual enrollment classes offered at the high school. The Umoja and Puente scholars attend classes and support instruction by leading activities and participating as assistants in small group work. Miguel Sanchez, a BCC alum and Puente scholar, states that this experience empowered him “to be more expressive and confident…as a mentor to the younger generation.” The support structure also allowed the faculty to establish a 5-1 or 6-1 student to teacher/mentor ratio in the classroom. Puente and Umoja scholars were able to sit with students when they were working in small groups to support their discussion. They were also able to support student learning by facilitating community-building activities and topical workshops. The dual enrollment counseling team at BCC attests much of the success of their students to the relationships that grow from the near-peer mentor model.
Academic support classes
Courses that provide students with extra support as they work through their class material, expose them to models of work that meet college-level standards, and give them the chance to practice in a low stakes environment can set students up to be successful. These support courses are especially effective when they are directly connected to a course and taught by either the same faculty member or an instructor familiar with the course content, assignment requirements, and instructor expectations.
Instructor collaboration
Successful dual enrollment partnerships make space for and support high school and college instructor collaboration and professional development. When this kind of collaboration occurs, high school curriculum and course offerings can provide effective preparation aligned with the college offerings, and college courses can build on the prior knowledge developed in the high school courses; this helps to create aligned pathways.
Building Student Supports is a Collaborative Effort
When partnerships collaborate to support students in dual enrollment, they have a clear understanding of which resources and services each partner is responsible for. They have a shared understanding that they are collectively responsible for student success.
Ways Partners Can Collaborate
Ensure communication is consistent and timely
Communication between high school and college partners is key to supporting students. Faculty and counselors often have the most frequent contact with students, so ensuring there is a regular feedback loop between instructional faculty and student support providers or liaisons is essential to providing students just-in-time support.
Identify a single point of contact at both the college and high school
Providing a single point of contact at both the college and high school who is responsible for supporting the dual enrollment program, monitoring the application and enrollment process, and serving as a liaison between the students and support services at each institution can establish an infrastructure needed for effectively connecting students to the resources that they need, when they need it. The college point of contact and high school point of contact can work together to coordinate overall delivery of services.
Have dedicated appointments with college and high school counselors for dual-enrolled students
Dedicated counseling appointments with counselors trained in supporting dual enrollment students will institutionalize counseling support. Some colleges and high schools may be able to dedicate a counselor for dual enrollment, others may need to train multiple counselors in supporting dual enrollment. Establishing a dedicated time with a dual enrollment counselor at both institutions contributes to effective communication and effective infrastructure support for students. Dual enrollment counselors can work as the single point of contact or they can work in partnership to ensure students’ needs are meant and students feel supported.
Establish an early alert system to identify struggling students
Establish a way for faculty to alert the single point of contact or counselors of struggling students so that they can get them connected to resources. Early alert systems can be an existing technology tool, a homegrown mechanism, or an agreement to routinely monitor student progress and needs.
Have high school teachers in classes with college faculty
The college faculty can teach the course as the content area specialist and the high school teacher can act as support within the class, utilizing their familiarity with the students, the high school setting and procedures. The college instructor can concentrate on the course material and the high school instructor can support individual students as well as ensure the norms of the high school are observed. When creating this kind of collaboration, be sure to include collective bargaining units in the discussion.
Embed student support time and services into student schedules
The high school can schedule students into a support class where they can complete work from college or high school courses. This can be especially helpful if the college course is online, but is also helpful if the college course only meets twice a week.
Partnership Example: Sharing the Responsibility of Supporting Students
Long Beach City College and Long Beach Unified School District share the responsibility of supporting students through their dual enrollment journey. The partnership provides the following:
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- College outreach provides registration and enrollment support.
- Faculty provide early alerts for poor academic progress.
- College interns follow up directly with students about enrollment concerns and other important deadlines and communications.
- Colleges and high schools collaborate to provide appropriate accommodations for students with disabilities.
- Dedicated college counselors support students at the high school.
- High school “teachers of support” act as a bridge between high school students and college faculty.
- High schools use non-instructional days to provide academic support.
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Instructional Approaches to Supporting Adolescents
Faculty who are new to dual enrollment often ask for professional development on pedagogy for adolescents. Because adolescence spans a wide range, from age 10 to age 25, pedagogy designed for high school students can be helpful for faculty in their on-campus classes as well. In the video, Stages of Adolescent Brain Development, Dr. Adriana Galván, Director of the Galván Laboratory for Developmental Neuroscience at UCLA, describes key developmental stages and needs. Studies of adolescent brain development tell us that adolescents have particular needs that instructors should support in the classroom experience.
The table below describes these needs and offers examples of classroom approaches to meet those needs.
| Developmental Need of Adolescents | Classroom Approaches |
|---|---|
| Warmth and support from adults who are caring. | Build in class time to check in with students and allow for authentic interaction. For example: Start class with check-in questions or end with quick writes that reflect on the assignment, and then follow up with individuals. |
| Being able to define their sense of identity, personal goals, and values through experiences. | Create assignments that allow students to learn about and explore their own culture. Assign readings that allow students to explore and reflect on their own values. |
| Ways to develop both meaning and purpose by contributing to communities, families, and peers. | Develop projects that involve families and communities such as service learning or family or peer interaction. For example: Students could teach a concept from the class to a friend or family member and ask that person to write a summary of the concept. |
| Real world scenarios to help build decision making skills. | Develop projects that utilize data about local issues. Assign projects that have a real-world audience, such as a public blog. |
| Safe ways to explore the world and take risks. | Create assignments that require students to try a new activity, such as volunteering at an animal shelter or going to a city council meeting. Have students identify in-class strategies for success that they want to challenge themselves to try, such as sitting in the front or raising their hand more often. |
| Positive ways to earn respect and social status from both adults and peers. | Create educational experiences where students can meaningfully contribute through service learning or classroom interaction. Highlight quotes and insights from student work. |
Equity Considerations
Different students, and different groups of students, have distinct support needs and our institutions have a responsibility to meet those needs. The partnership can uncover those needs by first looking at data to find out which students have been successfully accessing and succeeding in dual enrollment. Partnerships should be sure to review data disaggregated by race and ethnicity, gender, English language learner status, socioeconomic status, disability status, and other factors. If there are student groups that are underrepresented, find out why and take action. See the Data section for more information on collecting data.
Tailor Student Support to Student Needs
The following table lists a number of student groups and offers some considerations for tailoring support.
| Student Community | Considerations for Student Support |
|---|---|
| Multilingual Learners | Collaboration with both college and high school ESL instructors can help faculty with strategies for multilingual learners. Honor the student’s heritage language as an asset while offering scaffolded support for the course content. |
| Adult Learners Without a High School Diploma or Equivalency | Adult dual enrollment serves adults who are in a high school diploma or equivalency program, often at an adult school. It’s important to structure time for the college faculty to collaborate with adult school instructors to be able to meet the needs of this diverse community. Adult students often work and may be parents or caregivers. |
| Students from Rural Communities | Rural communities often rely on online instruction for college courses because faculty may not be able to travel to remote high schools. Scheduling a support course in the high school schedule for any online classes is a structure that provides support for the online instruction. |
| Justice-Impacted Youth | Faculty working in detention facilities may face logistical challenges such as access to technology and limitations on what they may bring into the classroom. It’s important for partnerships to give instructors time to prepare and rework their curriculum if needed. Instructors may also benefit from training such as trauma-informed pedagogy. |
| Students with Disabilities | Collaboration with the college special resource center and the high school special education department can provide general strategies that support students with special needs and who may have a range of abilities. To support specific students, make sure the college has a FERPA waiver that allows sharing of information about a student’s disability. Faculty can be proactive and, once notified that a student has specific accommodations, they can ask the student what might be helpful for them. |
| Students with Basic Needs Insecurities | Find out what basic needs support the college and the high school offer, such as technology, food, housing and financial assistance. Work with those departments to create a protocol for how they will support dual-enrolled students when a need is identified. |
| Student with Obligations Outside of School | Many high school students have obligations outside of school such as work, athletics, extracurricular activities, or are parents or caregivers. Scheduling college courses during the regular high school day is one way to support students with outside obligations. Another way is for instructors to provide flexibility in assignment due dates. |
Getting Started: Creating Effective Student Supports for Dual Enrollment
Planning student supports
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- Gather data to uncover the needs of the students and families your partnership serves.
- Identify current agreements and what they say about student supports.
- Assess your starting point.
- What are current outreach methods?
- What is the process for application and enrollment?
- What academic services are available from each partner?
- What support for basic needs are available from each partner? Types of support could include food and housing, monetary support, books, and mental health assistance.
- Develop your support team. It should include counselors, advisers, tutors and faculty.
- Map out the student journey. Be sure to include how students learn about dual enrollment and how they make decisions about college and career. Identify points in the journey where students might need interventions.
- Are there leaks in the student journey? Where do students need interventions?
- Where is there a need for removing barriers and improving processes, especially in application and enrollment? Are there smarter ways of working?
- How can partners embed support services into the courses?
Developing a plan to assess efficacy of student supports
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- Collect data during the student experience, a leading indicator, to improve provision of support interventions. This can help partners identify patterns in when students need interventions (e.g., in the first two weeks of class, right after midterm exams) and whether those interventions are successful.
- Collect data after the student experience, such as a survey or focus group about their experience, to improve the system of supports.
- Consider both quantitative data, such as student success measures, and qualitative data, such as student focus groups.
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- Which institution is responsible for providing student supports for dual enrollment, the high school or the college?
Both institutions have a responsibility to support students. If a partnership has a CCAP agreement, they should identify which supports will be provided by each partner. - Who should counsel the students for dual enrollment, the high school or the college?
High school and college counselors have distinct roles but should work in coordination with each other. College counselors can create college educational plans for students, but both high school and college counselors can help students explore career options and what certificates and degrees lead to those careers. Both counselors can connect students to academic and other supports offered by their institutions. - What happens if a student fails a college course while in high school?
Grades from college courses appear on the student’s college transcript and are counted in their college GPA. This means that failed attempts or failing grades can impact a student’s academic standing (academic or progress probation) and their eligibility for financial aid. - What is “academic probation”?
According to Title 5 section 55031, “A student who has attempted at least 12 semester or 18 quarter units as shown by the official academic record shall be placed on academic probation if the student has earned a grade point average below 2.0.” - What is “progress probation”?
According to Title 5 section 55031, “A student who has enrolled in a total of at least 12 semester or 18 quarter units as shown by the official academic record shall be placed on progress probation when the student receives symbols of “W,” “I,” or “NP” (as defined in sections 55023 and 55030) in fifty percent (50 percent) or more of all units in which a student has enrolled.” - What are “drop dates,” and how do they affect students’ transcripts?
There are multiple drop dates and types of drops from a college course, based on when a student drops a course. These are described below:- Drop with refund. This deadline usually occurs before the course starts and within the first or second week of the course. While dual-enrolled students do not pay tuition fees, there may be other associated course fees that can be refunded within this window. If a student drops before the refund deadline, there will be no record of the enrollment on the student’s college transcript.
- Drop without a “W” (before census). The census occurs 20% of the way through the course. If students drop before the census date, there will be no record of the enrollment on the student’s college transcript.
- Drop with a “W.” Students can drop a course up through the 75% date, but if they drop after the census date, then the course will appear on their college transcript with a “W” as the grade. These withdrawal grades are not included in a student’s GPA, but they do factor into calculations for progress probation.
- Any students enrolled after the 75% date will receive a grade for the course unless they are withdrawn through other methods determined by the college, such as an “Excused Withdrawal” (EW).
Barstow College defines each of these drop dates for students on their website.
- Can special admit students enroll in supplemental support courses?
Yes. Special admit students can be enrolled in courses that prepare them for or support them in transfer, general, and CTE courses. Once admitted to the college, a student can take any course that they meet the prerequisite for, or that is not age-restricted (such as a wine-making course). - Can special admit students retake courses?
Title 5 regulations limit how many times a student can repeat a community college course. According to Title 5 section 55040, “The governing board of each community college district shall adopt and publish policies and procedures pertaining to the repetition of credit courses.” View a sample of these policies and procedures from Santa Monica College. - Do high school students enrolled in a college course need to adhere to the college student code of conduct if the class is held at their high school?
Students are required to adhere to the college’s student code of conduct if they are participating in a college course, regardless of location or modality.
- Which institution is responsible for providing student supports for dual enrollment, the high school or the college?