Celebrating a decade of Early College High School

HARLINGEN — Ten years.

It’s been 10 years since Early College High School opened its doors, paving the way for new opportunities for its students.

Those opportunities would include starting college before graduating from high school and climbing aboard a pre-engineering track.

“We are celebrating this year a decade of breaking cycles of poverty,” said Veronica Kortan, director of organizational development for the school district.

“We are looking at all of the kids that we’ve impacted,” Kortan said. “We’re really excited about having a whole decade of being able to have ECHS.”

Those successes include students who graduated from ECHS and then returned as teachers themselves.

“I believe that ECHS gave me opportunities that otherwise I wouldn’t have gotten,” said Cristina Gonzalez, who graduated from ECHS in 2011.

She now teaches first grade at Lamar Elementary.

She pointed out the advantages of taking her first two years of college at Texas State Technical College while attending ECHS.

“I got the full college experience,” she said. “In my home we didn’t have the means to go to college. ECHS gave me the opportunity to pursue my career.”

Gonzalez is one of many successes from Early College.

“We have lots and lots of success stories about students who have gotten a jump-start on medical school and the engineering tracks,” Kortan said.

“This year of course we partnered with UTRGV. When you consider the evolution of where we started and where we ended up, it speaks volumes to the work that has been done.”

The school began 10 years ago with a simple academic core in partnership with Texas State Technical College before branching off into associate’s degrees.

“Now we’re offering a jump-start for a bachelor’s,” Kortan said. “It’s just incredible work.”

As opportunities increase at ECHS, so do students clamoring to enroll there.

“This year our number of applicants has been one of the largest we have ever seen,” she said. “The demand is getting bigger and bigger. That’s a huge celebration for the school.

“It tells us that what we’re doing in that small learning community is working.”