History of the North Carolina High School to Community College Articulation Agreement

The North Carolina High School to Community College Articulation Agreement is an agreement between the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction and the North Carolina Community College System.

1998-1999

A statewide steering committee first met to explore articulation of credit between North Carolina's public schools and community colleges in August 1998. This committee consisted of leaders from the community college and public school communities at both the local and state level. The committee was tasked with the determination and development of the guiding principles for the Articulation Agreement, definitions, goals, objectives, criteria, and work team structure for the Articulation Agreement.

Over the next several months, 14 curriculum work teams and three support services work teams were created to assist in the process. In order to remain in compliance with Southern Association of Colleges and Schools criteria, the curriculum work teams were composed of faculty and program specific curriculum specialists. More than 200 high school and community college faculty, curriculum specialists, counselors, registrars, and instructional administrators worked through issues related to placement tests, documentation, and evaluation. Recommendations from all of the work teams were incorporated into the articulation document.

From December 1998 through August 1999, presentation and revision of draft documents of the North Carolina High School to Community College Articulation Agreement occurred with five public hearings and additional solicitation of feedback from the stakeholders. The revised Agreement was presented to and endorsed by the State Boards of Education and Community Colleges in September 1999. In November 1999, each of the 59 institutions of the North Carolina Community College System endorsed, adopted, and accepted the North Carolina High School to Community College Articulation Agreement.

2003-2004

The Articulation Agreement began to evolve in late November 2003 when a Leadership Committee was convened to update the definition, goal, guiding principles, criteria, components, and evaluation process for the statewide Articulation Agreement. This committee was composed of college presidents, chief academic officers, associate superintendents, principals, local career-technical directors, College Tech Prep coordinators, business representatives, and state-level staff from both secondary and postsecondary education.

Using the Leadership Committee's recommendations and the original Articulation Agreement, curriculum staff from both the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction and the North Carolina Community College System identified potential courses in the career technical education's emerging curricula areas to be considered for articulation.

In January 2004, eleven curriculum teams, one team for each of the career pathways, assembled to take part in the curricula review process. Each team consisted of 12 high school and community college faculty. Over 300 faculty participated. The teams reviewed course descriptions, blueprints and competencies then determined if the course was appropriate for articulation. Crucial in the approval process was significant competency match to industry regulations and licensing requirements.

Upon completion of competency and content review, recommendations for course articulation were submitted to state staff for compilation and dissemination. Four drafts were distributed and refined over the next several months. Email permitted all 58 community colleges to have direct input into this process. Final drafts were presented to North Carolina Association of Community College Instructional Administrators at their spring conference and to the North Carolina Association of Community College Presidents during their fall meeting. The President's Association endorsed the Agreement at their annual meeting in October 2004.

The updated NC High School to Community College Articulation Agreement was presented to, and endorsed by, the NC State Board of Community Colleges on November 19, 2004. The updated NC High School to Community College Articulation Agreement became effective in January 2005.

2010-2011

In November of 2010, an advisory team from the public schools and the community colleges convened to study the articulation process and prepare a plan for its update.

This update was required because new courses had been added to the high school curriculum since the last update, and the grading process for the CTE postassessment exams had changed. The Articulation Agreement required a certain raw postassessment score, and the raw scores had been replaced by scale scores.

A steering committee met in December 2010, comprising representatives from the public schools and the community colleges. Lorin Anderson presented the current state of high school CTE course evaluations and explained the transition from raw scores to scale scores. A scale score of 93 was suggested to replace the current requirement of a raw score of 80.

The recommendation of the steering committee was reviewed by the community college institutional effectiveness team, system office psychometricians, and the senior vice-president for Academic & Student Services and chief academic officer. An approval letter was sent to the colleges describing implementation of the new award criteria for high school courses beginning Fall 2011.

In January 2011, NCDPI curriculum consultants joined with their counterparts at the community college system to discuss course descriptions and blueprints looking for courses that appear to align in essential standards and learning outcomes.

In March through May 2011, chief academic officers at each community college formed local curriculum alignment teams with the CTE director in each of the LEAs in their service area. These teams brought teachers and instructors together to examine the proposed articulated course matches. These teachers and instructors compared the course blueprints and college course outlines to determine if there was enough similarity between the two courses to justify including the course in the Articulation Agreement.

The data from across the state were compiled to see which courses should be included in the statewide Articulation Agreement. The final list was approved by the chief academic officers and the community college presidents.

During their November 18, 2011 meeting, the State Board of Community Colleges approved the updated Articulation Agreement to become effective July 1, 2012.

The State Board of Education endorsed the Articulation Agreement at their January 5, 2012 meeting.

2016-2017

In 2016, NCDPI curriculum consultants joined with their counterparts at the community college system to discuss course descriptions and blueprints looking for course matches that may need to be added to or removed from the current list of articulated courses. Their list of possible course matches was sent to the chief academic officers (CAO) at each college for them to coordinate the vetting process. Each CAO connected wth the director of Career and Technical Education at their local LEAs (school district) to assemble teams of teachers and instructors to review the potential course matches.

After the course evaluations were complete, those that received an overall rating of 80 percent match or greater were placed on the final list, which was sent to the CAOs for their final approval. This final list was then sent to the State Board of Community Colleges for approval at their July 2017 board meeting.

Sixty-two potential course matches were reviewed. In the end, there was a net gain of six course matches between the 2012 and 2017 course match lists.

Last modified: Friday, 21 July 2017, 7:33 AM