Early College Middle School to serve more
By Denise Dick
By DENISE DICK
YOUNGSTOWN
The city schools’ Early College Middle School is expanding this year to serve more students and conform with the district’s middle-school model.
Last school year, the district started the school, housed at Choffin Career and Technical Center, to get seventh-graders on the track to a college education.
Rayen Early College Middle School is a feeder program for Youngstown Early College. YEC, which is being transitioned from Youngstown State University to Eastern Gateway Community College, targets high school students who might not have the opportunity to further their education beyond high school, giving them an opportunity to earn college credits while completing their high school education.
It’s showing positive results. Though the district as a whole earned an academic-emergency rating on last year’s state report card, YEC rated excellent.
YEC takes in new students only at the ninth-grade level, and the first year of Rayen Early College Middle School accepted seventh-graders.
“It’s the feeder school,” said Superintendent Wendy Webb.
She said the students who participated in the early-college middle school last year weren’t chosen because of high grade-point averages. Though they were seventh-graders, most tested at a sixth-grade reading level.
Webb said the program worked well.
“It looks like it was pretty successful,” she said.
The curriculum for those students devoted more time to reading and more time to math, and Webb said the students showed improvement.
Between 80 and 85 students were enrolled.
“We’ve got to keep working with it and building it,” the superintendent said. “An earlier start is the most important start.”
This year, it expands to sixth-graders.
Anthony Catale, school board president, said the expansion keeps that school in the model of middle schools housing sixth through eighth grade.
He said the YEC program has been so successful that exposing students to more rigorous coursework earlier is expected to produce positive results too.