By Beverly Creamer
Advertiser Education Writer

With three successful years under its belt, the Running Start program is ready to expand, opening the door to many more high school students and giving them a head start on college.

The program allows students to enroll in for-credit classes at Honolulu Community College while they're still in high school. For each course, they earn dual credit toward both high school and college requirements.

Running Start began in 2000 with just a handful of students. Over the past year, 150 students from McKinley, Roosevelt, Kalani and Farrington high schools, including eight 15-year-olds, signed up for college classes at HCC as part of the pilot program patterned after one in Washington.

With almost all Running Start students faring well in their HCC courses, and with the program reinvigorating interest in school for some, the latest program evaluation recommends opening the program to more students.

The report, prepared by HCC faculty members David Cleveland and Jean Maslowski, also recommends expanding the courses from the basics — as students have requested. Expansion would include technical and occupational programs such as aviation, aviation maintenance, automotive technology, carpentry, computer electronics and early childhood education.

The key to getting more students enrolled appears to be getting the word out to high school counselors.

The program is open to high school students with approval from their schools and teachers.

And there's no grade point average restriction. Over the past three years students have been accepted into the program with grade point averages anywhere from 2.1 to 4.1, with a mean average of 3.35.

"This liberalized eligibility policy was adopted to permit the entry of students who may be quite talented but, for whatever reason (boredom, alienation, dislike of the high school environment, lack of motivation) don't possess high grade point averages," said the latest program evaluation report.

Almost two-thirds of the students enrolled over the past year have been supported by federal financing under the Gear Up program, which pays tuition for the program's financially needy students.

The evaluation notes that the students are delighted to be earning high school and college credits for the same work. And 74 percent consider UH-Manoa as a possible choice after high school graduation, although they are also considering 40 other colleges and universities.

Students said they enjoy the freedom the program gave them to learn in a new type of environment, though some felt intimidated at first and said the amount of textbook reading involved was daunting. But most said they enjoyed the college atmosphere and the trust that had been placed in them.

Studies done in other states point out that dual enrollment students are twice as likely to graduate from college on time and far less likely to require remedial classes in college.

The one downside is the potential loss of federal Gear Up money that has helped lower-income families pay for HCC classes. "Since Gear Up is a temporary federally funded grant program, the future enrollment of economically disadvantaged students has a cloudy future," the report says.

Reach Beverly Creamer at bcreamer@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8013.