Though Early Post Secondary Opportunity (EPSO) classes are required credits for graduation in TN, many students are unaware of what they are.To increase awareness, White Station High held an EPSO Night in the senior gym on Tuesday, Feb. 21.

White Station High is home to many interactive elective classes, such as Mythology, Contemporary Issues, Creative Writing, and many more. In addition, White Station houses many intensive Advanced Placement (AP), Dual Enrollment (DE), and State Dual Credit (SDC) courses that students can take to earn potential college credit and hours.

“Mrs. Holland and I talked about taking what used to be the old AP night and expanding it to highlight all of the options that we have at this school,” Vice Principal Michael Ayers said. “We felt that this would involve and include more students and would be attractive to all students here at White Station. Period. We feel like we hit the mark with introducing all that we offer in terms of academics at various levels, organizations, clubs, athletics, the entire offering that we have here and this is something we wanted to do and felt strongly about.”

The EPSO night was characterized by a fair-like set up in the senior gym, consisting of booths for individual classes that teachers hosted to promote their classes. Down the hall from the senior gym, breakout sessions were held including a student panel that took questions from potential students and parents of White Station.

“The rotations with the breakout sessions was born out of a need to give parents a deeper insight into things like Advanced Placement courses, DE courses, SDC courses, and we wanted to offer a student panel to fill questions from parents, such as ‘Do you feel safe at White Station, comma, is this a good place to go to school, why should we choose white station?’ but we wanted that to come from a student’s perspective,” Ayers said.

Lots of effort was dedicated to planning and preparing the EPSO night, and Ayers considers it to be a success.

“We had tremendous turnout,” Ayers said. “My invitation was for anyone who did anything at White Station to impact students, please set up a booth and talk about what you do. In the past, it was, if you teach an AP class you’re expected to be here and set up a booth or a display board … you had to jostle around the cafeteria and talk about your AP program. This felt more like a fair. An exhibition. And I wanted it to be a White Station exhibition, and it hit every mark and beyond. I could not have asked for a better effort from our staff.”