The Abridged version:
- Students at New Technology Early College High School in Sacramento are co-enrolled in high school and college courses. Freshmen to seniors, all are required to take classes at nearby Sacramento City College.
- Principal Jessica Martin said the school’s curriculum is not about forcing college on everyone, but expanding access to higher education.
- Along with classes, the high schoolers can use campus resources like the library or food pantry just like any other college student.
Last month, Abbie Preciado ventured to Sacramento City College to pick up her new student ID card.
While there, she and about a dozen new classmates explored the community college campus, becoming familiar with the layout, learning how to get to spots like the library or computer labs.
As it would be to any freshman, the experience was novel for Preciado. But stepping onto a college campus was, for her, extra special, given that she’s only 14 and also starting high school.
“I mean, I’ve done field trips to colleges before,” Preciado said. “But, like, actually getting to enroll in and now becoming a college student is a little different.”
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Preciado isn’t a one-off prodigy. She’s one of almost 150 students at Sacramento New Technology Early College High School who are taking courses as both high schoolers and college students.
Principal Jessica Martin said she wants to model a whole new approach to dual enrollment.
“It’s not about forcing kids to go to college,” Martin said. “It’s about exposing them to opportunities.”
College for everyone
Enrolling in college classes is a requirement for all students at New Technology.
Martin conceded the charter school’s arrangement may not be for everyone, just like college isn’t every pupil’s preferred path.
But, she said, the school is a place where students can picture themselves in the world of higher education, even if they never imagined going that route.
“I just feel like it’s an extra push for students,” said Corina Contreras, a sophomore. “It sets every student up for success.”
Where dual enrollment programs have often catered to a select group of “high achieving” upperclassmen, Martin said New Technology aims to give a wide swath of students the chance to experience college.
Really, she said, it’s about having a goal to go after.
“We don’t want them leaving saying, ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do next,'” the principal said.
That goal setting starts from the get-go during freshman year.
“Some of them say, ‘I don’t know right now,’ and that’s fine,” Martin said. “We’ll spend the next four years trying to help them figure that out.”
Easing into higher education
Ninth graders like Preciado take introductory courses, including “Orientation to College.” In this class, students learn skills such as time management or how to email a professor.
Isabella Mora Luna, a sophomore, said she wants to pursue a career in either nursing or teaching. Being at New Technology, she said, gives her a head start and leg up.
“I feel like when you don’t get these opportunities and when you do go straight into college, you don’t know what you’re doing, and you don’t know what’s happening,” Mora Luna said. “Doing it here, starting slowly … it helps a lot honestly.”
Many students at New Technology are on track to earn their associate degree before graduating high school, Martin said.
Contreras, fellow sophomore, also wants to study nursing, she said. Right now, she’s taking a psychology course, “Substance Abuse: Effects on Body and Behavior.”
‘They are college students’
Freshman and sophomores predominantly take classes online, while juniors and seniors go in person to Sacramento City College, two miles and one bus stop away from their high school.
All have access to the same college campus resources, from peer mentoring and tutoring sessions to food pantry supplies and disability services.
“They are college students,” Martin said, just as much as they are high schoolers.
“I just feel like a student,” Preciado said. “I feel very welcome on both sides.”
Martin said they have been intentionally strengthening their partnership with Sacramento City College. This year, New Technology administrators held their back-to-school parent power hour at the community college’s student center.
“The idea behind all of this is that your student feels like they belong to New Tech, which they do,” Martin told families at the Aug. 31 meeting. “But that they also feel like they belong here at Sac City College, because they do.”
