Monroe County Schools is set to launch its new College & Career Academy with the opening of the 2025-26 school year in August. The community has been watching the new building, next to the Monroe County Fine Arts Center, take shape over the last year and it is on track to open its doors with the new school year.
Monroe County Schools assistant superintendent Laura Rackley is the CEO/director of the new College & Career Academy. She told the Forsyth Monroe County Kiwanis Club on June 10 about the opportunities it will offer to Monroe County students. Superintendent Dr. Jim Finch introduced Rackley to the Kiwanis Club. He said that he had been trying to hire her from the Jones County School System for years and had the perfect position to get her to Monroe County since she had also opened the College & Career Academy in Jones County.
Rackley said that opening the College & Career Academy is a labor of love. It’s rare that the answer to ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ doesn’t change multiple times as a child grows up. Rackley said she changed her college major five times and ended up in a career that she loves.
“We don’t want to lock students into a career decision at 14; we want to expose them to careers,” said Rackley.
She said the new $25 million facility, which was built by Parrish Construction along with a new freshman campus, is basically complete. She said Parrish did a “phenomenal job” on the building, which includes labs and work areas for some specific career pathways.
Rackley said all Mary Persons students are College & Career Academy students because they are all being prepared for positions in the work force as adults. Mary Persons has an academic path to graduation and 23 Career, Technical & Agricultural Education (CTAE) pathways. Dual enrollment with colleges is available in both academic and occupational pathways. She said that partnerships with local businesses are an important component in exposing students to the choices they have in careers. The intention is for students to either confirm a career interest or learn that it isn’t something in which they want to invest more time.
Dual enrollment is now primarily limited to juniors and seniors, with limited openings for sophomores. She said her son began dual enrollment classes as a freshman, which many did a few years ago, and looking back she thinks it would have been better if he focused on the transition to high school and learning all that high school has to offer, including extracurricular clubs and competitions.
Dual enrollment will be made easier as some college classes will be taught on the Mary Persons campus, including two sections each of English 1101 & 1102, history 2112 and psychology 1101. Students can take the classes without having to drive out of Monroe County.
Rackley said Mary Persons has a thriving CTAE program, which will be a part of the College & Career Academy, including the options to become industry certified in various fields and to meet and compete with others in their career path through clubs.
A teacher has been hired for the new welding pathway. There is a great deal of student interest in the nursing pathway. There will be a new logistics pathway since there are increasing job opportunities locally in logistics. Sports medicine will be a new pathway, and the teaching as a profession pathway will expand. Computer programming will be a pathway instead of web design, after a review of the career opportunities. A program at C.W. Matthews Contracting provides training in the operation of heavy equipment.
Rackley told the Kiwanis Club members that volunteers from the business community are needed as guest speakers in classes and to conduct mock job interviews with students to help them become comfortable and successful in the interview process.
Lee Smith asked if there will be counseling for parents on how to help students with career choices. Rackley said a Parents Night is planned and there is a coordinator to help answer parents’ questions. She said parents can’t call college professors; so the program will be much easier for parents to participate in than college programs. Finch said that after the College & Career Academy is operating, the school system will dedicate a counselor to it.
Asked if there will be classes, possibly at night, open to non-Mary Persons students, Rackley said not initially but there are plans to add adult classes and open the facility to some community use eventually. She said adult participation is key. At Jones County, 123 adults had said they were interested in classes, but when they were offered only 11 showed up.
Joe Thompson asked if home school/private school Monroe County students could attend classes at the College & Career Academy. The answer was that students must be enrolled at Mary Persons.
Asked if students will be leaving the Mary Persons campus to attend the College & Career Academy, Rackley clarified that it is a different building but the same campus.
Tom Perry said that he feels students are better prepared to enter careers if they don’t graduate from high school until they are 18. Finch said that the trend of graduating earlier has reversed from a few years ago and now only 5-8 percent of students graduate from high school before they’re 18.
Asked about plans to build a new high school, Finch said that the freshman campus extends the time before a new high school is essential. In the dual purpose building, freshman students will be on one end of the building. Finch said there are plans to build a new high school building because of the age of the current Mary Persons building, but there are no intentions to build a second high school.
“We plan for a 2,000 student Mary Persons,” said Finch. “It can be done.”
Rackley said a Ribbon Cutting is planned for the new College & Career Academy on July 31. The building was built and furnished with a state grant and with ESPLOST funds.
