Information for High School Administrators

Sponsoring Advanced High School Students Through Distance Calculus

Distance Calculus regularly receives inquiries from high school administrators - principals, math department chairs, curriculum coordinators - looking to enroll one or more of their advanced students into Distance Calculus courses. We work closely with administrators to make that sponsorship process clean, structured, and well-supported on both ends.

Routine Progress Reports for Administrators

We support sponsoring administrators by providing routine progress reports on each student under your school or district umbrella. Because most of these students are under 18 years of age, the federal FERPA privacy restrictions that govern adult student records do not apply in the same way, which gives us the latitude to keep the high school informed throughout the course.

Administrators understandably want to keep a close eye on their students in their first collegiate course, and we encourage that. Distance Calculus is a deliberately structured collegiate program, but the bridge from a highly structured high-school math classroom to even a structured collegiate course is a real adjustment. Some students will need a little more discipline-side oversight than the Distance Calculus instructional staff alone can provide; the sponsoring administrator's involvement closes that gap and dramatically improves outcomes.

Purchase Order Tuition Payment

High school administrators can pay tuition for sponsored students via purchase order. Roger Williams University accepts school- or district-issued POs for tuition payment, and we will work directly with your business office to process them. The school or district can also elect to sponsor the e-textbook and course software fees separately if you wish to fully cover the cost for sponsored students.

Reflecting Distance Calculus Grades onto a High School Transcript

A common use case: high schools take the grade a student earns in a Distance Calculus course and reflect it back onto the student's high school transcript - typically classified as independent study, dual enrollment equivalent, or as a high-school course offering that the high school doesn't actually teach internally. Most high schools only offer mathematics through AP Calculus BC; a small but growing number offer Multivariable Calculus; very few offer anything above that. Distance Calculus fills exactly this gap.

Many high schools in larger metropolitan areas have formal cooperation agreements with local colleges or universities for dual-enrollment of their advanced students. While Roger Williams University does not offer a formally branded dual-enrollment structure for Distance Calculus, for practical purposes the arrangement is equivalent: sponsoring administrators receive progress reports they can use to assign quarterly and semester marking grades on the high school transcript, while the student also receives an official Roger Williams University academic transcript at the end of the course.

How to Get Sponsored Students Started

We strongly recommend that any sponsoring administrator reach out to the Distance Calculus staff before enrolling students:

• Email: info@distancecalculus.com
• Or call us directly to set up an appointment

On that call we will discuss how many students you would like to sponsor, which courses, and when you would like them to start. Once we've aligned on those details, the enrollment flow looks like this:

1. The administrator sends us the names of the students who will be enrolled under the school or district umbrella.
2. Each student, together with a parent or guardian, fills out the Distance Calculus Enrollment Application at home and submits it to us.
3. The Distance Calculus staff places the submitted applications into the proper district umbrella so they are processed as a sponsored cohort.
4. We work directly with your school or district business office to issue and process the purchase order for tuition, and (separately if applicable) the e-textbook and software fees.

Schedule a Study Block, Not After-School

A small but high-leverage piece of advice for sponsoring administrators: build a dedicated study block into the student's high school schedule for the Distance Calculus course. Pushing collegiate coursework into the after-school window almost always conflicts with the student's extracurriculars and sports, which makes consistent engagement very hard. Students who do the course during a structured in-school study block consistently outperform those who try to fit it in around evening commitments.

Important: The Enrollment Is Between The Student And The University

This is the single most important point for sponsoring administrators (and parents) to internalize: even though the school or district may be facilitating and financially sponsoring the enrollment, the actual academic enrollment is the student's. The student earns an official academic transcript from Roger Williams University in their own name - that transcript has no formal linkage back to the high school.

Concretely:

• The Enrollment Application is signed by the student and (for students under 18) their parent or guardian.
• The covenant created by enrollment is between the student and Roger Williams University.
• The high school is a sponsor and facilitator, not a party to the academic record.
• Whether the student is still in high school or has since graduated, the academic relationship they're entering is with the university directly.

That's why parents and students themselves must read and understand the full enrollment process, even when the school or district is paying. Sponsorship handles the financial and scheduling side cleanly, but it does not transfer academic responsibility for the course away from the student.

To begin sponsoring students or to ask questions: info@distancecalculus.com