FSCC commits to adequate funding of STARS program

Jack Welch, president of Fort Scott Community College, assures the STARS Foundation members that the college wants to support the Southeastern Technical Academy for Rural Students program at a meeting on Aug. 4. Welch's approach to STARS has been a 180-degree shift from the previous FSCC administration, according to STARS director Jay Allen. The meeting was held in the health sciences training room. (Roger Sims / Linn County Journal)

By Roger Sims, rsims@linncountyjournal.com

PLEASANTON – In early July, the officials and staff at the STARS technical learning center had been backed into a corner. With the beginning of the fall semester just a few weeks away, students from Jayhawk-Linn, Pleasanton, Prairie View, Louisburg and a handful of other area high schools were not being allowed to enroll in STARS classes.

The hold-up came from the administration at Fort Scott Community College (FSCC), the institution that pays for instructors’ salaries at STARS (Southeast Technical Academy for Rural Students) in Pleasanton. FSCC wouldn’t enroll any students for STARS classes until the STARS board of directors approved signing a memorandum of understanding with FSCC.

The Linn County Commission, which budgeted money for STARS for 2025, also formally asked STARS officials to sign a memorandum of understanding with FSCC. The STARS program has operated for three school years without a formal agreement with FSCC.

Earlier this year, the STARS board, pressured by the Linn County Commission to sign an memorandum before it would release more than $300,000 that had been raised by a 1 mill tax in 2024, voted to seek assistance from the Kansas Board of Regents by either forcing FSCC's hand or allowing STARS to join with another college.

After weeks of waiting for the regents to decide, they received a response that the board of regents did not have statuatory authority to act in either capacity. The only option STARS had was to reopen negotiations with FSCC.

Instead of dealing with FSCC's interim administration, though, Pleasanton Superintendent Don Epps and Jayhawk Superintendent Shawn Thomas reached out to members of the FSCC Board of Directors. And while members of that board indicated they would provide help for STARS, when Epps and Thomas went into negotiate, they were met with the same administrators who had been less than cooperative.

In negotiations, FSCC agreed to sign a memorandum but only increased the fee the school would pay per credit hour from $10 to $12 per student. Epps has said that the state reimburses the school as much as $800 per credit hour, depending on which course each student takes.

However, by accepting that deal the STARS board and administration would find itself with an operating deficit of more than $60,000 for the 2025-26 school year. STARS Director Jay Allen and Pleasanton USD 344 Superintendent Don Epps expressed concern about how the trade school would come up with the money.

To force STARS hand, FSCC told Allen that it would not enroll any students until STARS signed the memorandum.

Over the past couple of weeks, however, that concern has evaporated as Jack Welch and Larry Guerrero toured the STARS facility and learned about their programs. Welch was recently appointed president of FSCC, and Guerrero was named vice president of academic affairs.

And just days before area high school classes were to start, a glitch in FSCC's enrollment system was resolved and students from those classes were able to enroll.

In a special meeting on Monday, July 28, Welch and Guerrero met with the STARS Foundation board and the instructors at the Pleasanton facility. They reassured the board and staff that STARS program was important and that FSCC would remain in a partnership with STARS for the long term.

“What you’re doing here is educating people for? Opportunities to take care of families,” Welch said. “Not everybody is going to college.”

But Welch, a former football coach who often uses gridiron analogies to put his points across, went even further. He said he wanted to get billboards up in Frontenac and Paola as well as Bourbon County to show what STARS offers.

“I want handouts that show what we’re doing here in Pleasanton,” he added.

He also said he wanted people to know that the STARS campus was Fort Scott’s campus.

“We’ve got to be ready for the kickoff,” Welch said. “You’ve got an unbelievable welding program here. Why aren’t we advertising it?”

Welch went on to suggest that the STARS grounds had plenty of room for growth and that he could foresee the expansion of the campus that would also include buildings for the dual-credit courses being taught now in the high schools.

Daniel Earnest, a board member and representative from Enerfab Inc., a business that has given considerable financial support to STARS, pointed out that the current building is already getting cramped.

Enrollment at STARS has grown considerably over the past three years and expected to grow to 150 students for the 2025-26 school year.

Larry Guerrero, vice president of academic affairs at FSCC, explains to the STARS Foundation Board how promoting the STARS program could spur enrollment. (Roger Sims / Linn County Journal)

In addressing the STARS board at the July 28 meeting, Guerrero said that he realized how important training in the skilled trades is. He said that Northern New Mexico College in Española, New Mexico, found that adding a program that prepared students for the skilled trades workforce was key to the college’s growth.

He indicated that promoting the STARS program would help boost FSCC’s enrollment, noting that in the case in New Mexico, the students came from families whose members were from the work force.

He also said that an important part of the equation for STARS was the quality of the instructors.

“When you find talent, you’ve got to support that talent,” Guerrero said.

Allen told the board that when Guerrero first toured the facility he asked what STARS needed. “Their actions tell us they want to be part of the team,” he added.

Allen said in a separate interview that a memorandum of understanding had been signed and the FSCC had agreed to provide additional funding that would cover the operating costs for the coming school year. Operating costs for such things as heating and cooling, electricity, water and other expenses for STARS can’t come from other public school districts.

The STARS building, a former auto dealership, is owned by the Pleasanton school district. Using money from tuition provided under Kansas Senate Bill 155, which allows tuition payments for high school students enrolled in trade school programs, FSCC foots the bill for instructors’ salaries and benefits; it also provides money for administrative salaries, including a part-time administrator and office manager.

Much of the money spent to turn that building into classrooms and work areas came from grants and corporate sponsors. However, according to Allen, public school districts cannot pay for operating costs. School districts did agree to pay a small fee for each student for each STARS class they enrolled in, but that wasn’t enough to cover additional expenses.

Since the STARS program first came into being three years ago, Allen and the superintendents of the three Linn County school districts have been pressing FSCC for more money. Allen also went to the Linn County Commission asking for money, and commissioners reluctantly helped out.

Allen said that each year negotiations with the interim FSCC administrations became more difficult. Added to that, there was no formal agreement with FSCC to provide instructors or any other support to STARS. Any agreement was verbal.

The school has unofficially been tasked with coming up with funds to help students entering the STARS program. While a college-bound student in the high school can benefit from scholarships that will help pay for college expenses, Allen said that many STARS students could use financial help at the beginning of the school year.

Many students come to the first week of classes in athletic shoes, but the classes for the most part require that students wear leather boots, and in some cases steel-toe leather boots. He said some trade unions and companies donate to help with the equipment needs.

With the support from FSCC assured and the memorandum of understanding signed, the STARS Foundation is looking toward the next step. That could include purchasing the STARS building.

STARS board member and Linn County Commissioner Jason Hightower confirmed at the meeting that STARS currently has a line item of about $332,000 in the county budget based on a 1-mill tax levy in 2024. That tax was not levied again in 2025.

There was some discussion about the STARS Foundation purchasing the building from the Pleasanton school district and then entering into some kind of agreement with FSCC. With the building still owned by the Pleasanton district, it is difficult for other school districts to directly pay operating expenses. Instead, the other districts have paid $50 per student per class.

If the building was owned by the STARS Foundation and leased to Fort Scott, that might at least partially remove that roadblock for added support from the school districts.