By Dylan Bradley/ne news editor
The traditional idea of high school is being revamped with the opening of an early college high school on NE Campus this fall.
Students will simultaneously earn a high school diploma and an associate degree during their four-year high school career. The first year will include the college courses music appreciation and speech.
“We will provide them with a chemistry lab and a biology lab,” NE vice president of academic affairs Gary Smith said.
The school will be located in the NDPP building with renovation scheduled May through June including a director’s office, nurse’s station and five classrooms.
The director of the early college high school, Bobbe Knutz, interviewed and selected 121 students, and says one of the goals of the school is to get students who think they have no chance of going to college, to go.
“Our target population is first-generation college-goers, students that are economically disadvantaged and students that have been identified at-risk,” she said.
Some of the life circumstances that can make a student at risk of graduation include not passing a state exam, being held back a grade or being homeless, Knutz said.
“It can be outside influences or it can be how you’re progressing,” she said.
Knutz said despite the goals, any student in the district moving into the freshman year could apply.
Students choosing to attend also decided to give up most extracurricular activities.
“We’re going to have clubs and activities,” she said. “They’re going to pin on the interests of our students.”
NE Campus president Larry Darlage said the school was modeled after a program Brookhaven College utilizes.
“It will give us an opportunity to give back to the community and help students be successful,” he said. “It will help us provide the educational opportunities that many of them will need and probably without this they would not be able to be successful in not only college but high school.”
Smith said that the high schoolers will be provided with textbooks and not pay tuition.
“It’ll be a big benefit for the whole community,” Darlage said.
