Trustees Approve Tuition for District 505 School Districts in ETA

Parkland College plans to offer tuition and fee discounts to district high schools participating in an early-college academy

Parkland College plans to offer tuition and fee discounts to district high schools participating in an early-college academy and welcomes a new leader for the college's foundation.

At its regular meeting Wednesday, the Parkland College Board of Trustees approved offering tuition/fee arrangements for District 505 school districts taking part in the Parkland Early Transfer Academy (ETA), starting this fall. The program allows college-ready high school students to enroll in classes at Parkland's campus and systematically work toward completing a Parkland credential or an Illinois State Board of Education College and Career Pathway Endorsement, or both. 

The Parkland ETA tuition-and-universal-fees arrangement will follow the current tuition and fees structure established with Education for Employment #330 to operate Parkland's Early College and Career Academy (ECCA). The total cost of tuition and fees will be determined by the credit hours offered to participating school districts' students in ETA. Parkland College will forgive two credits for every 12 hours offered to a district's ETA students, a 16.7 percent discount for tuition and universal fees. ETA students will pay non-discounted additional course fees specific to the courses offered.

The board also approved Danielle Wilberg as Parkland's new associate vice president for development/executive director of the Parkland College Foundation. She begins April 1 and replaces Tracy Wahlfeldt, who will retire on April 30.

In other business, the board approved the following:

• the award of an honorary degree posthumously to Andrew W. Thomas
• the purchase of:
  • repair services from Poplar Grove Airmotive, Inc., Poplar Grove, Ill., $46,050
  • six career exploration carts from Vista AAC, Ltd, Youngstown, Ohio, $49,760
  • services with Carle Hospital for athletic training room and event coverage, $26,720
  • services with ReUp Education, Inc, Austin, Texas, to provide bundled reenrollment and student success services for a term of five years at a rate of no more than 30 percent of tuition realized from the reenrollment of these stop-out students
• the filing of grant applications:
  • Champaign County Developmental Disabilities Board Grant
  • Case New Holland (CNH) TopTech Grants Program
• funds awarded to Parkland from external sources:
  • University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC): US Department of Education Title VI National Resource Center Grant (International and Middle Eastern Studies curriculum projects)
  • Illinois Community College Board: FY25 Noncredit Workforce Training Initiative Grant
  • ICCB: FY2025 Digital Instruction for Adult Education
  • ICCB: Mental Health Early Action on Campus Support Expansion Project
  • ICCB: FY25 Scaling and Assessing Developmental Education Reform Act (DERA) Project
• personnel appointments and modifications:
  • Melanie Lewis, Director of Benefits and Compensation, Human Resources
  • Martha Jacobson, Director of Talent Acquisition and Labor and Employee Relations, Human Resources
  • Rowan Miller, Custodian, Physical Plant
  • Christopher Livesay, Custodian, Physical Plant
  • David Knapp, Custodian, Physical Plant
  • Samuel Welander, Custodian, Physical Plant
  • Keelan Hensley, Custodian, Physical Plant
  • Joshua Boyd, Custodian, Physical Plant
  • Gabriel McElhaney, Custodian, Physical Plant
  • Kharina Roman-Rivera, Program Manager, Community Specialist, Career and Community Engagement