CHS Press Release

3/12/2009

Collegiate Alum Shine Following Completion of Innovative Program

Jonathan and Jennifer TallmanRecognized as one of Florida's strongest high schools and a great educational innovation, the Collegiate High School was established by OWCC ten years ago. The Collegiate High School concept, which continues to thrive at Northwest Florida State College, has been replicated at St. Petersburg College, Polk Community College, Indian River College, and at Florida Community College at Jacksonville.

A charter school of the Okaloosa School District, the Collegiate High School at NWFSC allows more than 250 motivated high school age students in grades 10, 11 and 12 the opportunity to complete college-level work and earn a two-year college degree while simultaneously completing a high school curriculum.

The school's students perform exceptionally well on all state accountability measures each year. Since the school was established in 2000, seven classes have graduated and gone on to make their way in the world. Here's a look at what some former students have accomplished since leaving the Collegiate High School with their high school diplomas and two-year college degrees in hand!

BEN CORBIN

Ben Corbin is a graduate student at MIT in Boston, where he is working on master's degrees in aerospace engineering and planetary science and will go on to get a doctor's degree in systems engineering and aerospace engineering.

He is a research assistant with a lot on his plate. In addition to keeping his grades up ("I got a 5.0 GPA last semester,") Corbin, in his words, is "the flight engineer for a suborbital rocket project that will carry an ultraviolet telescope above the atmosphere to look at Venus." He also serves as director of the Ultraviolet Vacuum Calibration Laboratory at MIT.

After graduating from Collegiate High School in 2004, Corbin, who grew up in Shalimar, went to the University of Central Florida. At UCF, he earned a bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering with minors in physics, math and astrology. Corbin, 22, says his two years at CHS freed him up to take on an array of classes at UCF he never would have had time for otherwise.

"I still took four years as an undergrad at UCF after leaving O-W," he notes. "But instead of taking five or six classes every semester because I had to, I was taking them because I wanted to."

Collegiate High School "prepared me for college because IT IS college," he says. "When you are mixed in with other college students and interacting with them it brings you up to college level much faster."

He says he would recommend CHS to students who know what they want to be when they "grow up", and also to those who don't.

"If you kind of know what you want to do it helps you get a jumpstart in whatever career field you want to get into," Corbin says. "If you don't know what you want to do, it offers you the opportunity to expand your horizons. It gives you options."

BEDFORD WEST

Bedford West, now 23, graduated from the Collegiate High School in 2003 and went on to major in physics and math at Florida State University. He intended to go to graduate school but, while taking a break from school, landed a job at Eglin Air Force Base, where he's a software test engineer for the 46th Test Squadron.

"I love my job," he says. "It's great. I certainly wasn't expecting to get a job this good straight out of college."

West moved to DeFuniak Springs before the seventh grade and attended ninth grade at Walton High School before transferring to Collegiate High, where he was in the first class that went through all three years of the innovative program to earn a high school diploma and a college degree at the same time. Going to the school was his mom's idea, and he remembers being a bit skeptical, although he says it didn't take him long - maybe a week - to realize that the school was a good fit for him.

"If you are academically inclined and serious about your schoolwork and want to be in a small group of students with teachers who are really involved in whether you succeed, it is absolutely something to consider," West says.

JASMINE DeNAMUR

Jasmine DeNamur was a classmate of West and graduated the same year. The 23 year old earned her bachelor's degree in psychology at the University of West Florida and a master's degree in counseling and psychology from Troy University.

She, too, was talked into the Collegiate High School by her mother. And she, too, will tell you that her mother was right.

"I made more friends my first week there than I did in a whole year at Niceville High School," DeNamur reports. "I liked the learning environment better, and on the social side, there weren't any cliques. School was challenging but it allowed for a lot of freedom. It forced me to grow up and be more responsible for how I managed my time. It was perfect real world training."

DeNamur now works at the public affairs office at Eglin, where her duties range from community relations to writing about the base's mission.

"I love it," she says of her job. "I wouldn't trade it for the world."

She says if she were to talk to an incoming class, nervous, as she was, about attending Collegiate High School, "I would tell them that though it is scary to think about leaving your friends and social network, you aren't going to miss out on a thing. You are going to get everything everybody else has plus some."

JONATHAN TALLMAN

Jonathan Tallman grew up in Niceville and graduated from the Collegiate High School in the fall of 2005, finishing in 2 1/2 years instead of three. He majored in psychology and minored in communications at Flagler College in St. Augustine.

"I really liked the atmosphere of Collegiate High School," Tallman says. "The individual attention, the fact that the students were a lot more serious - it was a great learning environment. The bar was definitely set pretty high, and it made me want to try harder and work to get ahead faster in life."

He was especially impressed with the jumpstart CHS gave him on his education.

"Going to upper-division college as a junior when I was 18 years old was awesome," Tallman says. And, he said he was more than ready for the challenges that faced him at Flagler, such as group projects and writing assignments, were he considered himself better prepared than the older students he was taking classes with.

"The way I see it, I got 2 1/2 years of college for free," he reports. "That would be $20,000 bucks' worth, maybe even $40,000."

Tallman is 21 and works as a financial representative for Northwestern Mutual Financial Network, where he says, he "helps people attain financial security." He serves his church as a youth leader, he coaches basketball and he's active in the Rotary Club of Niceville and three area chambers of commerce.

"This is such a great area," he says of the Emerald Coast. "I just really like it here, and coming back gives me an opportunity to give back to where I came from."

Tallman is married to his high school sweetheart, Jennifer Gager Tallman.

JENNIFER TALLMAN

Jennifer Tallman is 21 and a 2006 graduate of the innovative charter school. She earned a bachelor's degree in communications with an emphasis on public relations, with a journalism minor, at Flagler College. Now, she is a marketing assistant at Beach Community Bank.

"I loved every minute of Collegiate High School," Tallman declares. "I was so involved."

She met her future husband a week or so after school started when they ran against one another for class president. She won, and she and Jonathan started dating "probably a month or two later."

Tallman describes the Collegiate High School course load as "very hard." But, she is quick to point out, "they prepare you so much for a four-year program." Upon graduating from the school, she says, "I already had my first two years done and was able to finish my degree in just four semesters."

"If you are looking for a smaller environment and one-on-one interaction with your professors, where everybody knows your name, if you want to be motivated and challenged, this would be a great fit," she says of Collegiate High.

Tallman, like her husband, is active in her church, where she leads a mentoring Bible study group for high school students and takes part in mission trips.