Enrollment policy at YEC goes beyond city district

A new middle school opening this fall will serve as a feeder program for Youngstown Early College.

STAFF REPORT

YOUNGSTOWN — The Youngstown City School District is opening the doors at Youngstown Early College to students from outside the district.

School officials said YEC will have 20 “open enrollment” slots for freshmen this fall.

It’s the first time the educational experiment, operated in conjunction with Youngstown State University, has accepted students from outside the city. The school is limited to 100 new students each year.

Superintendent Wendy Webb said she has been receiving telephone calls from parents outside Youngstown who would like to get their children enrolled in YEC, where they can earn college credits while completing high school.

The Ohio Superintendent of Education has designated YEC as a “School of Promise,” and it is rated as “Effective” by the state Board of Education.

The program has also drawn the praise of YSU President David C. Sweet, who has touted the partnership with the city schools and said he wants to see it continue.

The school, in Fedor Hall on the YSU campus, graduated its first class of seniors last spring, with four of the 41 graduates earning more than 60 college credit hours to secure associate in arts degrees as well as their high school diplomas. Thirteen students graduated with more than 25 college credit hours each, and about 30 graduates enrolled at YSU last fall.

The district will open a new middle school this fall — The Rayen Early College Middle School, which will be used as a feeder school to the YEC program.

An additional 20 slots for incoming seventh-graders at that school will be set aside for open enrollment as well.

The new middle school will open with no more than 125 seventh-graders and be housed temporarily in the Choffin Career & Technical Center on Wood Street.

Plans involve expanding the middle school to include eighth grade in fall 2010 and moving the school, with a maximum enrollment of 250 students, into a renovated Judge William Rayen Building at Wood Street and Wick Avenue.

Webb said the goal is to prepare the students for the rigor and pace of a combined high school and college curriculum.

Enrollment at both YEC and the middle school will be by application only, and entering students will be interviewed and selected by a committee.

Applications are available at Youngstown Early College on the second floor of Fedor Hall at YSU or in Room 207 at the board of education office at 20 W. Wood St. Applications must be filed at the board office by 3 p.m. April 30.