The four-year high school experience is common among most who go through the public school system. However, a select few students have gone above and beyond to fulfill credit requirements, shortening their time by a full year.

The school board requires that each student pass 23 credits by the end of their senior year. Though most students are short two credits after their junior year, students Brittany Kampfer, Carleta Nunez, Karissa Aldrich, Kelan Atkins and Michaela Durner have taken on extra school work in order to fulfill class requirements.

“I just felt ready to go to college,” Aldrich said.

The motives to take on the extra workload differed.

Having doubled-up on her history and science credits sophomore year, Kampfer decided it made sense to put in a couple extra hours to save herself a whole year.

“Senior year I would only need two elective credits, so I didn’t see the point of coming to school all year,” she said.

When Atkins saw the opportunity to leave the high school setting early, he became motivated to complete the necessary credits in the shortened time.

“I wanted to graduate early because I didn’t like school,” he said. “School isn’t really my thing.”

When the ninth-grade class moved into the high school three years ago, both high schools in Lawrence added a seventh period to the school day, making it easier to fulfill the graduation credit requirement for many students.

In principle, by the end of junior year, if one has taken a 0-7 hour schedule for two of their three years, they would have the 23 credit hours needed to graduate high school. However, students graduating a year early also took on outside courses online and through credit recovery.

“I had some credits I was behind on, and I did them in credit recovery, and I made up a lot of my classes,” Atkins said.

In order to get her English credits, Aldrich took two blocks of it in school and completed a third through credit recovery, which she was able to complete in a month’s time. She also took her senior government class through an online high school.

While Kampfer had a bit less ground to cover, she attended “Can We Talk” meetings on late arrival mornings throughout the year to fulfill an elective credit.

Even though they started out the year with the class of 2015, the four seniors will, like the majority of their new class, follow this year with post-high school education.

Kampfer plans on attending Highland Community College next semester. While she doesn’t have a definitive major yet, she sees the value in getting a jump-start to her collegiate career. She describes the advantage as “getting your future started earlier and getting out there and being ready to take on the world.”

Nunez also plans on continuing her academic path at Highland in the fall.

Atkins intends on getting his Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) license after graduation and making further career decisions afterward.

Aldrich has decided on a similar pathway. She has already completed her CNA course and plans on continuing her nursing education at Neosho County Community College where she will work toward her registered nursing license followed by further study for a professional degree in the health industry.

While these students could be accomplishing the same tasks a year from now, they have chosen to get a head-start on their careers by getting out of secondary education early.

“I just feel like it’s one extra year that you don’t have to stress and worry about,” Aldrich said. “I feel like graduating early, you can just jump right into it rather than having to wait another year for doing something that you really want to do.”