News

By Alex Freeman, MCC Communications Specialist

When Ben Brock took the reins as principal of St. Louis High School (SLHS) in 2021, he set his sights on a bold goal: bringing college-level learning into his students’ classrooms — but winning over higher education institutions proved to be a tougher sell than he imagined. 

Many colleges turned down the school’s request for a dual enrollment partnership, reluctant to extend their programs to St. Louis. In the interim, the school offered students online college courses through a different institution, but the lack of in-person instruction led to low engagement — students often didn’t take the classes as seriously as hoped. For Brock, it became clear that a successful concurrent enrollment program needed to include face-to-face learning opportunities to truly benefit his students. 

“I am a true believer in face-to-face instruction being more powerful than online,” Brock said. “It allows for better time management and better accountability. In the kids’ term, you can’t ‘ghost’ your teacher here if you’re here every day — you can if the instructor is online and they never see you.” 

That turning point came when Brock reached out to an old friend — Ben Stancil, Dual Enrollment English Instructor and Coordinator at Montcalm Community College — whom he had once taught alongside at Grayling High School. From their very first conversation, Brock sensed this partnership would be different. The immediate trust between the two educators laid a strong foundation for collaboration, and MCC soon agreed to bring an in-person dual enrollment program to St. Louis High School, aligning perfectly with Brock’s long-standing vision. 

“You want to make sure that the people who you’re going to work with have your best interest in mind,” Brock said. “That’s what I felt from the very beginning with Ben and with Montcalm Community College. It’s been a great thing.” 

With the full support of St. Louis Public Schools Superintendent Jennifer McKittrick, SLHS’s dual enrollment partnership with MCC began in fall 2024 and the process was aided by one of their teachers securing a full-time position at the college. 

MCC English Instructor Erin Busch-Grabmeyer previously taught at SLHS for 22 years before accepting a position to join the team at MCC in August 2024. However, this also opened the door for Busch-Grabmeyer to teach MCC classes at SLHS as part of the dual enrollment program. 

“We wanted to try and make it work where she can still be teaching at St. Louis,” Brock said. “We have a lot of people who have siblings who want to take her class and now they’re still able to take her class and benefit two-fold, having a concurrent enrollment and being able to have high school credits and college credits taken care of during their senior year. It’s nice that they’re still able to have Ms. B-G for their senior year.” 

Busch-Grabmeyer taught MCC’s Freshman English I and Freshman English II classes at SLHS during the 2024-2025 school year, with at least 15 students in each section. 

“My students have been prepared and eager to learn, with the bonus being that they will earn college credit if they pass the course with a 73% or higher,” Busch-Grabmeyer said. “When I taught full-time at SLHS before coming to MCC, I taught AP Language and Composition. Students were taking a college-level course but needed to pass a test before they could earn transfer credit to their preferred institution.” 

College-level communication and art classes were also taught at SLHS for the 2024-2025 school year. Brock estimated there are 15 to 20 dual enrollment students at SLHS and there are 55 total slots available. Many students have felt empowered to try out the dual enrollment classes as SLHS introduced a five-point GPA scale. If a student gets a high grade in the dual enrollment class, they can drastically raise their high school GPA. 

“That was enticing for a lot of our students,” Brock said. “Maybe some students who wouldn’t have taken the risk before felt comfortable taking it, and that’s been great.” 

“Without dual enrollment at SLHS, students may never have taken the chance to enroll in a college course as they might not have known about college offerings or been able to afford the expense of the course,” Busch-Grabmeyer added. “Dual enrollment offers a low-stakes/high-gain opportunity for students to take advantage of this. There can be a lot of stigmas surrounding college courses, and dual enrollment at SLHS allows students to attempt a college course while still in comfortable surroundings.” 

Dual enrollment courses are currently marketed to SLHS students via their announcements, but Brock has found that the students also advertise it to each other. 

“There was a big word of mouth at the very beginning because there were some dynamic people who came in and worked with our students; other kids wanted to be a part of that,” Brock said. “If your buddy is taking it and you don’t have to spend money on gas in your car to go drive somewhere to take the class, you can take it right here with all your friends, it makes it that much more accessible to kids.” 

Since Brock arrived at SLHS in 2021-2022, enrollment has dropped from 336 to an estimated total of 250 for the 2025-2026 school year. With three other area high schools located within eight miles of SLHS, Brock is hoping their dual enrollment partnership sets them apart from the others. 

“We’re in the era of school of choice and we’re in the era of people and programs,” Brock said. “People go to schools for their programs, whether it’s academics or athletics. The word is starting to get out and we’re having inquiries here on how people can get involved with this. 

“If they see what we’re doing here with dual enrollment, parents can see their kids come in and be successful and it doesn’t cost them anything,” he said. “We’re trying to build that trust with parents. We don’t do the recruiting, but when a person is looking for the best possible situation for their child, we take that seriously.”