JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. — On a recent Wednesday afternoon, Jackson Hole High School seniors learned hip-hop dance, locking and popping across the gym floor.

It was their reward for finishing the semester of “College 101” and applying for college, jobs and scholarships.

“It’s going along with our theme of helping to prepare them for what the next step is,” high school counselor Julie Stayner said with a laugh. “Stress reduction.”

All 150 seniors in the gym that day had applied for some sort of higher education, job or military service, and they deserved a break.

On the other side of the school, juniors who completed a practice ACT test were enjoying a build-your-own ice cream sundae party.

And they didn’t just finish a semester in test prep; the students collectively raised their ACT scores by two points.

Jackson Hole High School already has some of the highest test scores in the state, with an average of 21 to 23 on the 36-point-maximum test, assistant principal Jim Rooks said.

“We’re convinced our school-wide scores will go up significantly,” he said.

In other areas of the school sophomore students were learning how to use software in the “21st Century Learner” course, and freshmen were taking crash courses in nutrition, cooking and even how to change a car tire.

All of these courses comprise the school’s new College Ready program. For 90 minutes every Wednesday, each grade level divides into segments to learn how to be successful in high school, college and life. The College Ready program recently was selected to be featured in March at a statewide school improvement conference in Casper, Rooks said.

“Everybody’s trying to get kids ready for college, but it’s a big endeavor,” he said. “You have financial, you have academic, you have student attitude, you have scholarships. You have such a wide variety of elements that constitute college and success at the college level. ... States and school districts all over the country are struggling with exactly how do you do that.”

The first step is to set kids up to be successful in high school.

“You don’t do well in college unless you get out of high school,” Rooks said.

Jackson Hole High School had a 100 percent graduation rate last year, but that’s not enough, he said.

“It’s not good enough to just hand them a diploma,” Rooks said. “We have to make sure they’re ready for some form of higher education. We’re not like college snobs. Any form of high education, whether it’s trade school, technical school, community college or Harvard. Our commitment is that our students are ready to go to college, go to college and graduate from college.”

Fifty percent of kids nationwide who enroll in college graduate, he said. And within those 50 percent, some students take five or six years to complete a degree.

The goal of the College Ready program is to create contributing members of a highly competitive global economy, he said.

High school administration and staff worked a full year planning the College Ready program and curriculum. Every teacher at the high school participates in the program.

“A secret mission of this is relationships between students and teachers,” he said.

“Every single kid will work with every single teacher at the high school.”

In the library, the students were working with librarian Lori Clark-Erickson, among others, to learn to use software and how to cite sources, especially those information bits found online.

Clark-Erickson called it “information literacy,” meaning teaching students the skills to evaluate websites for validity, as well as how to figure out what resources to use and how to find them.

The students compiled a photo story, some with audio dubbed over the slides, comparing two new tech gadgets.

“I actually like the Nook better, because you have to have a light for the Kindle and that hurts my eyes,” sophomore Grace Balliro said of the competing electronic readers.

The test prep courses are as much about teaching test-taking tricks as preparing for the content, said Les Bishop, schools-to-career coordinator.

Strategies include how to read the question clearly and even how to guess well, he said.

Shauna Earl, who also facilitated the test prep curriculum, said the program showed students the monetary value of studying for the tests.

“They have more scholarship opportunities just two to three points that they raise,” she said.

In addition to the test scores, Jackson Hole High School has seen other improvements to student attitude.

“Mark my words, and I’ll bet the ranch on it, we’ve already seen and will continue to see amazing things happen in our school because of this program,” Rooks said. Already, attendance rates and the average GPA of the school have gone up.

“And that’s just the first semester of the program,” he said.

Senior Katy Estes was waiting to hear back from her top-choice school while she sat out during the hip-hop dance lesson that day. The College 101 course helped her get her applications in, she said.

“Instead of being at home and being confused and trying to figure something out on your own, you can do it here,” she said. “It definitely helped.”

Estes would like to study anthropology or sociology at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in upstate New York.

The seniors now go into a semester of senior projects or planning their prom, graduation and senior video.

But before that, they relaxed a little and enjoyed having all applications for the next step, whatever it is, turned in.

The students doubted if hip-hop dancing would actually prepare them for what’s to come, Stayner said.

“ ‘Does this help me?’ “ she said they asked her. “Yes, it does actually. Dance away, you guys.”

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Information from: Jackson Hole News And Guide, http://www.jhnewsandguide.com