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Owensboro Innovation Academy Partnering with Brescia for Associates Degree

Education leaders from Owensboro Innovation Academy and Brescia University, along with students, announce a partnership that will allow students to earn a two-year associates degree along with their high school diploma.
Dave Kirk, Owensboro Public Schools
Education leaders from Owensboro Innovation Academy and Brescia University, along with students, announce a partnership that will allow students to earn a two-year associates degree along with their high school diploma.
Education leaders from Owensboro Innovation Academy and Brescia University, along with students, announce a partnership that will allow students to earn a two-year associates degree along with their high school diploma.
Credit Dave Kirk, Owensboro Public Schools
Education leaders from Owensboro Innovation Academy and Brescia University, along with students, announce a partnership that will allow students to earn a two-year associates degree along with their high school diploma.

Owensboro Innovation Academy is adding another new opportunity to a public high school that’s already breaking the mold. The school is partnering with Brescia University to give students the chance to earn a two-year associates degree while they’re getting their high school diploma.

Students will be able to choose from four tracks at Brescia. Two of the tracks will cover basic college requirements for either an associate of arts or science degree. Owensboro Innovation Academy Director Beth Benjamin says the other two tracks are more specialized.               

“One is a health studies degree, which would be their general education degree plus some of those science-specific and health-specific courses that they would need to go on and continue their nursing degree or any other medical degree. And the engineering is the first two years of their pre-engineering degree.”

The second part of the partnership will allow students at Innovation Academy to use the new gym at Brescia, which is just next door to the high school that’s located in the Owensboro Centre for Business and Research.

The Innovation Academy launched in 2015 with a focus on the STEM subjects of science, technology, engineering and math. The academic style is project-based learning, where students often work in teams on creative projects.

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Rhonda Miller began as reporter and host for All Things Considered on WKU Public Radio in 2015. She has worked as Gulf Coast reporter for Mississippi Public Broadcasting, where she won Associated Press, Edward R. Murrow and Green Eyeshade awards for stories on dead sea turtles, health and legal issues arising from the 2010 BP oil spill and homeless veterans. She has worked at Rhode Island Public Radio, as an intern at WVTF Public Radio in Roanoke, Virginia, and at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Rhonda’s freelance work called Writing Into Sound includes stories for Voice of America, WSHU Public Radio in Fairfield, Conn., NPR and AARP Prime Time Radio. She has a master’s degree in media studies from Rhode Island College and a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Boston University. Rhonda enjoys quiet water kayaking, riding her bicycle and folk music. She was a volunteer DJ for Root-N-Branch at WUMD community radio in Dartmouth, Mass.
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