Board members of Judson School District and Beth Lewis, vice president of Northeast Lakeview College, traveled to Challenge High School in Houston earlier this month to observe how better to undertake the opening of Alamo Community College District's Early College partnership with the school.
Students enrolled in the program can obtain both an associate's degree and a high school diploma concurrently in a span of five years, thus enabling them to become better prepared for the leap to a four-year institution. A motivated student may be able to accomplish the task in only four years by going to summer school.
According to the Texas Education Agency Web site, the Texas High School Project is a $261 million public-private initiative committed to increasing graduation and college enrollment rates.
As part of a $12 million bond for taxpayers in the Judson School District, the board was able to undertake construction of a building to house 400 high school students in the program.
Tuesday, in a telephone interview, Dr. Ed Lyman, superintendent of Judson, said, "Our community is ecstatic. They like to see us using tax money to enhance education," Lyman said.
Lyman also said that if everything goes according to plan, the first students should be able to take their seats by August 2009.
During a Monday telephone interview, Lewis said the program was designed to appeal to students who are uninvolved in extracurricular activities and focus only on academics, or students who normally would be uninvolved altogether.
"It's a way to recapture some students who might otherwise fall through the cracks," Lewis said. While visiting Challenge Early College High School in Houston, Lewis encountered many inspiring students."I met some kids with stories that would break your heart."
Some of the group also visited Dallas for a Texas High School Project Conference where they met officials of several other school districts who were in the process of, or had already established similar programs. Lyman believes that about 30 similar programs of varying degrees exist in the state of Texas, but the closest example to the partnership here is in El Paso.
Major financial contributors to the project include the Office of the Governor, the Texas Education Agency, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation and the Wallace Foundation.
For more information, visit the Texas Education Agency Web site here.
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