FY25 ACCSS Report

The Alliance for College and Career Student Success (ACCSS) Coordinating Council continues to focus on priority areas aligning with the four college and career readiness components outlined within the Illinois Postsecondary & Workforce Readiness Act (PWR Public Act 99-0674) as well as the Illinois State Plan for Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act (also known as the Perkins V Plan).

The Alliance is comprised of representatives from ECC, Districts 300, 301, 303, U-46, and EFE Region staff.

1. Committee Work

Each of three committees set their goals for the 2024-2025 academic year, collaborated on strategic initiatives and provided quarterly updates on progress. The following is a summary of committee work and goal advancement:

A. College-Career Pathways

Pathway guides. Pathway guides provide clear roadmaps for D509 families and students to aid them in making informed high school course selections that align with specific career requirements. These maps also guide collaboration between ECC and school districts in developing dual credit opportunities that will help students gain credits toward their future postsecondary career programs. The College and Career Pathways Committee focused on updating previous maps to align with the most current requirements and course changes. Updates were made to these high-priority career fields:

• Business and Financial Services
• Information Technology
• Health Sciences and Technology
• Manufacturing and Engineering Technology

Career guides and dual credit development support the districts in their efforts to implement College and Career Pathway Endorsements. Illinois HB3296 requires districts to apply to ISBE to offer at least one College and Career Pathway Endorsement beginning with the graduating class of 2027, at least two endorsements by 2029, and at least three endorsements by 2031. The work of the Alliance has allowed all of the D509 districts to surpass that goal. Pathway endorsements require secondary students to complete at least six early college credit hours, internships and career guidance. The endorsement helps students develop technical and essential employability skills and prepare for rewarding careers.

Dual credit. The dual credit program continues to grow substantially, particularly for courses offered at D509 high schools. ECC focused efforts during FY25 on developing efficiencies to help the college and partner districts with the increased burden related to application and registration processes due to the rapid growth. New approaches will continue to be developed and implemented in FY26. 

Student success in dual credit courses has remained positive. In FY25, high school students taking courses on campus experienced an average 92 percent success rate, defined as a C or better, while students taking courses in high school-located courses saw an 87 percent success rate.

Dual credit instructors receive professional development workshops to enhance their knowledge and skills in the disciplines being taught.

Fire Science and Safety. Close collaboration between D509 school districts and ECC resulted in a pathway specifically designed for students interested in Fire Science and Safety.

Beginning in Fall 2025, students from Districts 300, 301, and U-46 will attend a sequence of courses at the college that combines two Fire Science and Safety courses with two general education courses required in the FSS program without great interruption to their course schedules on their high school campuses. District 303 will join the program in Fall 2026. Districts promoted the pathway on their own campuses and ECC held an open house for the program at its Burlington Campus.

The success of this collaboration has led to discussions about developing similar pathway options on the ECC campus for high school students interested in criminal justice and health science programs.

B. Instructional Design and Academic Alignment

Transitional Math courses. Districts and ECC collaboratively worked on review and renewal of transitional math agreements to be submitted to ICCB for approval under the Illinois Postsecondary and Workforce Readiness (PWR) Act , which calls for transitional courses for mathematics and English Language Arts. These high school courses are developed jointly by the high schools and the college, allowing students who successfully complete the courses to demonstrate readiness for college-level coursework. Data from the transitional math courses shows a significant increase in students taking, succeeding, and utilizing their transitional course for placement upon arriving to ECC.

These are the numbers of students taking MTH 102 or MTH 104 after taking transitional math at their high schools. Students didn’t necessarily take the math courses during their first semester as ECC students:

2019-20 – 0 students
2020-21 – 30 students
2021-22 – 78 students
2022-23 – 146 students
2023-24 – 175 students
2024-25 – 176 students

The students in these courses achieved negligibly higher success rates than other students on campus who took MTH 102 or MTH 104 without first taking a transitional math course (70% vs. 69%).

Similarly, the students taking MTH 112 after taking transitional courses also grew. Their performance in the course was also on par with other students in campus who took MTH 112 after completing a developmental course on campus (MTH-098 or MTH 099).

2019-20 – 3 students
2020-21 – 41 students
2021-22 – 54 students
2022-23 – 97 students
2023-24 – 124 students
2024-25 – 140 students

Data shows that work needs to continue to help educate students and advisors so they enter the appropriate math course at the college directly connected to the type of transitional math course taken.

Transitional English courses. Agreements for transitional courses in English were reviewed collectively and completed. Similar to the math transitional courses, students who successfully complete the courses are validated as ready for college-level course work in curricular areas requiring reading and writing competency measures. Transitional English courses began significantly later than transitional math courses, and the college is in the process of capturing data for this population.

Curriculum alignment. The alignment began planning stages for a curriculum alignment meeting between high school science instructors and ECC. The college has grant funds available to cover substitute costs for district instructors to attend alignment meetings.

Professional development. This committee continues to hold professional development events for dual credit instructors and liaisons.

C. Student Transitions

The Student Transitions Committee completed a long-time goal of creating a shared event calendar across districts and ECC departments. This calendar will help avoid scheduling conflicts.

Several large-scale student events that support student transitions included:

• • EXPLORE career exploration (Sept. 25-26, 2024)
  • Apprenticeship Expo (Nov 21, 2024)
  • Job/Internship Fair (Apr 24, 2025)
  • First Lecture Event (Feb 21, 2025) with 400 students attending

Other events included participation in Kids College, Talent Search and Upward Bound summer programming, college tours, culinary and auto demonstrations on campus, a hands-on robotics event, college science and healthcare demonstrations for students.

The college provided workshops for high school students on skills for success, exploring careers, financial literacy, interviewing skills, resume writing, scholarships, time management and more. High school students throughout D509 very widely received resume writing training as part of the summer internship program managed through the Alignment Collaborative for Education.

In the 2024-25 academic year, this ACCSS committee will further investigate career exploration programming opportunities, particularly for middle school students.

2. Policy & Governance Initiatives

Data Sharing Agreement

• Ongoing discussions have continued regarding revising and renewing the existing 2015 data sharing agreement.
• Goal: Improve student outreach, particularly for those in Dual Credit but not yet enrolled at ECC.
• Concerns raised over limited access to student contact information (due to firewalls and email restrictions).
• Suggestions to use School Links or seek state student ID numbers to track postsecondary plans and outcomes.

MOU Revisions

• Revisions to Transitional Math MOU included changes to encourage faculty review participation “whenever feasible” and clarified professional development expectations.
• D301’s version of the Dual credit MOU will be used as a model for collaborative updating; shared in Google Drive for joint editing.

3. Research & Evaluation

• A cost analysis update on dual credit programs is underway, updating the original 2019 study.
• Review of Transitional Math outcomes indicated that students taking TM were more successful in follow-up college courses compared to those from developmental math.
• Pre-ACT testing data is being researched.

4. Conferences & Professional Learning

• ECC will fund NACEP conference attendance for one representative per district (Oct. 26–28, 2025, Los Angeles).
• Seminar topic lists from past years to be shared to guide participant focus.

5. Meeting Schedule (2025–26)

• Regular quarterly meetings scheduled:
  
  • Aug. 26, 2025 (in-person)
  • Dec. 2, 2025 (virtual)
  • Feb. 3, 2026 (virtual)
  • Apr. 28, 2026 (in-person)