District 203’s Board of Education voted in favor of eight new career-focused courses to be offered at Naperville Central and North during the 2025-26 school year. The Nov. 4 vote also removed six courses due to “decreasing enrollment” and “duplicity in content in other courses offered.”
The new courses are designed to support the district’s growing number of College and Career Pathway Endorsements. District 203 currently offers six CCPEs and intends to double that number for the 2025-26 school year. Pending approval from the Illinois State Board of Education, the new CCPEs would include Marketing, Accounting, Emergency Medical Services, Certified Nursing Assistant, Health Science and Cosmetology.
“Our hope is that between the collaboration with counselors, with the internship coordinators and everyone else across all the academic areas, we’re [able] to provide a little bit more exposure to [CCPEs],” said Steve Jeretina, Assistant Principal for Curriculum and Instruction. “This looks good on [a] transcript and it’s something that will separate you from somebody who may not have [a CCPE] as you’re applying for a job or on a college application.”
In order to earn a CCPE transcript seal, students must complete two years of career-focused coursework with at least six hours of early college credit, two career exploration activities or one intensive experience, two team-based challenges with adult mentoring and 60 hours of paid or for-credit supervised career development. They must also follow an individualized learning plan and be ready for college-level coursework in reading and math.
Many of the new offerings are career-focused courses that earn dual-credit with the College of DuPage. Six of the new courses offer early college credit, and a further four courses will be renamed and adjusted for the same purpose.
“The big thing with the connection between the courses themselves and the pathway is [that] we’re trying to promote opportunities where there’s real life application,” Jeretina said. “We’re also trying to make dual-credit partnerships because those [are] requirements that the state has for someone to earn a pathway endorsement.”
More than 4,000 Illinois students have earned a CCPE transcript seal since ISBE started publishing data in 2021, including 195 from District 203. While the second most popular endorsements statewide are in the Health Sciences & Technology cluster, District 203 doesn’t currently have any endorsements in that area. They applied for three HST endorsements for the 2024-25 school year, pending ISBE approval.
“One of our goals was to make the healthcare pathway accessible to all students who are interested,” Science Department Chair Dan Olandese said. “A lot of times we know ‘nurse’ and we know ‘doctor,’ but we don’t know ‘ultrasound technician.’ These classes try to bring those careers to the forefront and show that there’s many pathways to have a successful career in healthcare.”
One of those endorsements is the Biomedical Science Pathway, which includes three new courses under a nationally recognized Project Lead the Way curriculum, each eligible for college credit at select colleges and universities. PLTW Principles of Biomedical Science will be eligible as a freshman science course, although it (and the other PLTW science offerings) do not satisfy District 203’s “pillars of science” graduation requirement.
PLTW Principles of Biomedical Science and PLTW Human Body Systems are both available sophomore year and thereafter, while PLTW Medical Interventions is a weighted course only available to juniors and seniors. PLTW Medical Interventions also contains much of the curriculum that currently exists in Biotechnology, which was removed at the Board of Education meeting following a continued decrease in enrollment at both Central and North.
“[Biotechnology] is a really lab-based, niche class that people took if they wanted advanced exploration of genetics and DNA technology,” said Biotechnology teacher Crystal Griffith. “Pieces of Biotechnology will be in each of those Project Lead the Way classes, and still in AP Biology.”
Ultimately, Olandese says that most of the decision’s impacts are currently unknown, as enrollment in each of the PLTW classes and other new courses has not yet been finalized. The 2025-26 school year will also be the first time that AP Biology is offered to sophomores in replacement of Honors Biology.
“I’m excited, [but also] a little bit nervous,” Olandese said. “Whenever you have the first year of anything, you don’t know where everything will settle. That is a bit of an unknown, but I’m confident that the teachers and the department and the building as a whole can still support everybody to be successful.”
Sarah Segvich contributed to this story
