Connecting with Incubator Grant & Early College Expansion Grant Awardees
In the week leading up to Thanksgiving break, the NS4ed School Services team visited several emerging early college programs throughout Massachusetts. This allowed leadership coaches to connect with students, educators, incubator programs, and early college expansion awardees, advancing relationships and early college services for MA communities. In August, NS4ed released that they would support the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) efforts to expand statewide Early College High School (ECHS) initiatives and provide first-rate coaching services. This is what those personalized, professional coaching services look like –on the ground and in person.
Leadership coach Wenalyn Bell Glenn interviewed ECHS students collecting their stories and perspectives on attending an early college. According to one student currently attending Merrimack College as a freshman, “I was able to come into Merrimack College as a freshman but with sophomore credits.” She highlights that as a first-generation student, the early college high school program helped her to transition into college. It allowed her to “ease her way into college” and pursue a quality, high-value computer science pathway.
Current high school students in early college programs described having the opportunity to take college-level coursework in business studies virtually while in their high school setting. They recognized that they were earning college credits and benefiting from the early college opportunity of being able “to acknowledge if that [business] is the right path for me.” Another student added that they like feeling “like a college student” and earning credits before graduating high school.
