Starting in the fall of 2011, Ann Arbor students will be able to take classes at Eastern Michigan University for both high school and college credit.

The Ann Arbor school board voted to join the Early College Alliance at its meeting Wednesday. The ECA is a consortium of school districts in Washtenaw County — Chelsea, Milan, Ypsilanti, Lincoln, Willow Run and Whitmore Lake — with EMU to give students the chance to work toward a college degree while still in high school on the state’s dime.

Trustee Susan Baskett said the program will be a great addition to Ann Arbor’s academic offerings.

“I think it’s a great program, it will add to the smorgasbord of education options available in our district,” she said.

Ann Arbor will have 25 spots reserved in the 2011 program. The enrollment cycle for the 2011-12 school year will begin in October. Students in each district need to apply through their own district in the ninth or 10th grade to gain acceptance into the program.

The Ann Arbor school board also voted to join the Washtenaw Intermediate School District’s Widening Advancement for Youth program. That program is a project-based curriculum for students who have dropped out of high school or are at risk of doing so and are looking to gain credits to get their degrees.

Monique Uzelac, director of instructional technology for the district, said 23 students are planning to sign up for the program - 14 drop-outs and others who aren't on track to graduate.

Trustee Andy Thomas called the WAY program “a great way of reaching our at-risk students.”

New workstations

In other business, the board approved purchasing 80 new Point Of Sale workstations, which cafeteria workers use to ring up students’ lunches. Robert Allen, deputy superintendent of operations, said the district’s current machines are past their replacement dates.

The new units will cost $149,260 and are expected to last three to five years, Allen said. Despite the cost of the machines, by replacing them the district anticipates saving $75,000-$125,000 over their lifespan, Allen said.

“The payback on maintenance costs over those three to five years should accumulate enough to purchase new machines,” he said.

Allen said the difficulty with repairing the workstations is the back-up caused by closing lines in cafeterias, on top of the manual labor required to repair them. He said new machines would simply make lunch time more efficient in schools.

Elementary schools typically have one workstation, middle schools have four or five and high schools have eight to 10, he said.

Board Secretary Glenn Nelson said the new machines were worth the cost simply because of the benefits that would result for students and staff alike.

“There will be real improvements for the student experience, in terms that the breakdowns are not only costly in the staff and parts sense, but also the student experience in the lunch line,” he said.