Rochester Public Schools plans to fund select students after graduation following confusion about P-TECH
Feb. 21—ROCHESTER — Rochester Public Schools announced on Thursday that it will set aside an additional $130,000 to help the current students in its P-TECH program finish their coursework following high school graduation.
The decision came following confusion about how long the program was supposed to last. When P-TECH first launched in 2021, families were told it would last for six years. However, now that students who launched the program as freshmen are getting ready to graduate, they had been told otherwise.
Following a review of the program and what was explained at its launch, the district will pay for students currently enrolled in the program to finish their work. Students who join the program later, however, will not have access to the same option. In other words, that means the school district will continue to pay for the education of a select group of students after they are no longer in the K-12 system.
"This is, to me, a really big deal," RPS Superintendent Kent Pekel told the Post Bulletin. "I think it would have been breaking faith with those kids because they were told it (would be paid for)."
P-TECH is a program that allows students to pursue either an information technology track or a nursing track while still in high school. It's a partnership with Rochester Community and Technical College, IBM and the Mayo Clinic.
Rochester Public Schools first announced the creation of the program in 2020, before Pekel joined the district. The first cohort of students then began their work in P-TECH in the fall of 2021.
Pekel said that ever since he came to the district, he believed the program was an "early college model," in which students accomplish their programs in IT or nursing by the time they're ready to graduate high school.
The breakdown in communication seems to have happened since the district initially began using some generic P-TECH literature and marketing that existed in other schools outside Minnesota, which in some cases allows students to continue in the P-TECH model for a fifth and sixth year.
Even though RPS has budgeted $130,000 for the current cohort to finish their work in the program, it's possible that the district could redeem some of that cost. For example, Pekel's memo explains that if any of the students qualify for financial aid, that would offset the cost of helping those students get across the finish line.
"I deeply regret the confusion that has arisen regarding this issue," Pekel wrote in a memo on the issue. "And since I learned about this concern at the start of the month, I have worked with our team to find a path forward that supports P-TECH students while also recognizing that RPS has very limited funding and authority to support their study at RCTC after they have graduated from our school district."
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