Next year will be the last year that juniors from Seattle Prep commence for their senior year to Seattle University’s Matteo Ricci College.
This coming year will be the last formal year of MRC as Prep knows it. Seattle University is now moving in a different direction with Seatle Prep, and Prep is starting a new relationship with JVLA, which stands for Jesuit Virtual Learning Academy. Seattle Prep will be involved in a new hybrid online class experience along with Verbum Dei, a Cristo Ray school located in Los Angeles.
This hybrid online class is going to be offered to juniors and seniors; Arts and Cultural Identity for juniors, and Ignatian Discernment: The Art of Finding Your Way
for seniors. There can be a maximum of 10 students in each class, and it is going to be a different experience than any other class that Prep has offered. Each student enrolled in one of the classes will have a free period in order to study and learn from the class, and once a month will video conference with the professor at SU and also the students in L.A. The Prep students will even have the opportunity to engage in projects with these students. The juniors and seniors of Prep will receive both high school and college credit for the classes, either arts or theology credit depending on which class they are taking.
Prep and Verbum Dei are the only two schools in the country involved in this hybrid online model, and although it is only the beginning, Prep sees this as a stepping-stone to many more schools from all around the world being involved.
Mr. Kelly said on the change, “We’re really excited to see how this hybrid model might become more robust. Today we’re doing this with Verbum Dei in L.A., but in a couple years, who knows, we could be collaborating with students in Tokyo or London.”
This class will not, however, be in addition to all the classes that Prep students are already required to take. It is instead, a replacement of a class they would already have to take, in order to not overload the students. This is going to be a very beneficial change for Prep, and it will be interesting to see how it plays out.