Early College High School (Costa Mesa, California)

The Early College High School Initiative

Early College High School is a bold approach, based on the principle that academic rigor, combined with the opportunity to save time and money, is a powerful motivator for students to work hard and meet serious intellectual challenges. Early College High Schools blend high school and college in a rigorous yet supportive program, compressing the time it takes to complete a high school diploma and the first two years of college.

Early College High Schools are small schools from which students graduate with not only a high school diploma but also an Associate’s degree or up to two years of college credit toward a Bachelor’s degree. By changing the structure of the high school years and compressing the number of years to a college degree, Early College High Schools can improve graduation rates and better prepare students for entry into high-skill careers.

The History of N-MUSD/CCC Early College High School

Early College High School, otherwise known as "ECHS", is a collaborative effort between the Newport-Mesa Unified School District and Coastline Community College. It is a public high school for grades 9 through 12 located in Costa Mesa, California. It is located at 2990 Mesa Verde Drive East in Costa Mesa, CA

Newport-Mesa USD/Coastline Community College Early College High School opened in August 2006. The program is structured to provide successful, challenging, and meaningful experiences for students. ECHS is an academic program intended to enable students to pursue post-secondary education at a community college, four-year college, or university.

Students are offered not only the opportunity to earn a high school diploma and meet university entrance requirements, but they also take college courses for which they receive college units through concurrent enrollment.

ECHS has a maximum population of one hundred students per grade level, allowing for smaller class sizes, frequent opportunities for individual participation, and personalized attention from faculty and staff.

ECHS Vision and Student Goals

An Early College graduate will:

*possess the motivation and skills needed to conscientiously pursue on-going academic, occupational, and personal growth.
*demonstrate requisite skills of independent and critical thinking, problem solving, articulation, and organization.
*be aware of and respect human diversity and be able to maintain open communication with a wide range of people.
*possess self-knowledge, self-esteem, motivation and self-discipline, including the capacities to overcome adversity, accept boundaries, and maintain high standards.
*possess collegiate level skills in mathematics, science, computer technology, history, extended writing, economics, and global knowledge necessary for understanding the past, present, and future.
*be a productive, environmentally aware, economically independent citizen who will contribute positively to society

References

* [http://www.nmusd.us/earlycollege School web page]
*http://www.earlycolleges.org/ Early College High School Initiative
*http://coastline.cccd.edu/ Coastline Community College
*http://www.nmusd.us/ Newport Mesa Unified School District