March 19 2014 Issue

ShedStreet.com, created by Steiner entrepreneurs, celebrates 1st year

By CASSIE MCKEE, Four Points News

A little more than a year ago, Steiner Ranch residents Michael Heldebrandt and Eric Hiduke remember looking in their garages and thinking, “What are we doing with all this stuff?”

That question led the two to create a website known as ShedStreet.com, which provides a platform for neighbors to lend and borrow items from each other.

“We launched the site based on our belief that people can experience more without buying more,” Heldebrandt said. “Over the past year, we have proven that to be true.”

L-R Michael Heldebrandt and Eric Hiduke on a trip to Japan in 2012.

For example, if a person has an urge to take up kayaking, their choice is to go to the local sporting goods store and buy one or rent one somewhere. If they buy one, they may use it once and then store it in their garage for the rest of the year.

With ShedStreet, someone who has a kayak is able to rent it to neighbors, which allows them to try it out and decide whether or not they like it. They can then rent it whenever they feel like going to the lake.

After its one-year anniversary, the Four Points area alone, has hundreds of items on the site available for rent. Kayaks and stand-up paddle boards are among the most popular items, Hiduke said. Continue reading →

Many VHS students earning college credits, Dual-credit program gaining momentum

By CASSIE MCKEE, Four Points News

Many Leander ISD high school students have found that taking classes that earn them both high school and college credit while still in high school can mean huge savings on their college tuition bill later.

Through the Austin Community College Early College Start program, high school juniors and seniors can take up to two dual-credit classes per semester and during the summer.

Sarah Spradling, transition coordinator at Vandegrift High School, oversees the program at VHS and said students could potentially earn up to 36 college credit hours before they even leave high school.

VHS has a high number of students in program, which may be in part to the school’s creation of the “Early College Start Plus” plan, which is a sequence of courses designed to fit student’s schedules all offered at the high school during the regular school day.

“To take that many hours at Texas State University, it would cost $8,000,” Spradling said.

While a three-credit hour class would cost $1,240.89 with mandatory fees at Texas State and the same three-credit hours at ACC would cost $249, students in the ACC Early College Start program pay nothing except the cost of books.

VHS had 284 students enrolled last year in the dual-credit program, more than any other LISD high school.