Our School

Early College Academy is an amazing opportunity for students to earn both a high school diploma from District 6 and an Associate of Arts degree from Aims Community College. We are a unique high school with a very clear academic focus.

Early College Academy is a school that:

Integrates students' high school and college experiences, both intellectually and socially.
Blends the curriculum as a coherent unit, with high school and college-level work melded into a single academic program that meets the requirements for both a high school diploma and grants college credits through Aims Community College.
Enables students to earn an Aims Community College Associate of Arts (A.A.) degree with the option to transfer those credits to another college.

OPEN ENROLLMENT

District 6 serves more than 20,000 students in the communities of Greeley and Evans, Colorado. It has 25 district-operated schools, plus five charter schools and an online academy. District 6 students' academic performance has been rising steadily over the past five years and high school graduates routinely earn prestigious honors, awards and scholarships to colleges and universities all across the nation. Graduation rates have continued to increase, drop-out rates have continued to decrease and the District 6 school board and instructional team are committed to continually working to improve the education of all students.

ECA Statements

Mission & Vision

Mission Statement

Effort Creates Achievement

ECA empowers and encourages high school students to succeed through a college experience now.

Vision Statement

Early College Academy provides rigorous, student-centered opportunities that blend high school and college experiences, inspiring students to unleash individual potential and overcome barriers for their future lives.

By creating pathways for students from all backgrounds to attend college, we give students access to opportunities and the support needed to advocate and provide for themselves, their families, and our community.

Values & Beliefs

Because the world needs hopeful activists, scientists, creators, and civic-minded individuals:

We are a school of innovation and we encourage our instructors to be creative and our school to be a leading institution in the landscape of early college model schools.
We offer a smaller, more personable educational environment that helps students thrive in our challenging early college curriculum by connecting various resources to students’ specific needs and goals.
All ECA students take college classes and have the opportunity to earn a free Associate’s Degree while learning on a college campus.
Students graduate ECA confident in their abilities to navigate their civic and human responsibilities, because our relationship-oriented culture allows us to more effectively guide students to locate and pursue college and career opportunities beyond ECA.

Components of ECA Education

Components of the Early College Academy education model include:

An academic program that has graduation requirements that meet the requirements for guarantee transfer classes as outlined by Colorado Commission of Higher Education (CCHE) and Aims Community College.
An academic program that exceeds District 6 instructional standards and meets high school graduation requirements.
A diverse student body economically, ethnically, and academically that mirrors the District 6 population.
An intentional school culture that provides all students with the opportunity to become future leaders.
A culture of individual and systemic support, including early student intervention programs, 21st Century teaching and learning through an extensive and personalized blended learning program.
All students earning an A.A. degree which will be accepted under the guarantee transfer guidelines for Colorado’s four- year colleges and universities.

Educational Program Design

Foundation

Early College Academy believes that all students can learn and that it is the responsibility of educators to ensure that students achieve. The following four beliefs serve as the foundation for the instructional program:

Early College Academy holds high expectations for all students and will support all students to meet these high standards.
There is no remedial track. Instead of tracking students, Early College Academy provides support and challenge when appropriate through student grouping and differentiation and offering additional support to ensure that all students are college ready.
Every student learns differently, and classroom instruction must accommodate diverse learning styles and abilities.
Every student is expected to complete a two-year A.A. Degree program, regardless of his or her academic starting point.

Rigorous Academic Culture

Early College Academy will create a rigorous academic culture that cultivates a college- going atmosphere. Early College Academy will establish four expectations which will be shared among staff, students, and parents. Those expectations are:

To require students’ best effort daily, expect all students to succeed, and support their efforts to do so.
To provide a strong foundation in each academic discipline so that students can engage in rigorous work.
To achieve student mastery in college- readiness standards that enable all students to earn a two year A.A. degree, and be successful in college or university, graduate school, and professionally.
To build critical thinking skills among students to solve real-world problems through the ability to understand, analyze, apply, and synthesize ideas and knowledge.

Integrated Approach

Early College Academy seeks to establish a transformational educational model. Sense of community, equity, 21st Century Skills and a shared sense of responsibility are also essential elements of a well-rounded education. While recognizing that academics always come first, Early College Academy seeks to use an integrated approach in order:

To effectively use technology as a tool to enhance learning and to integrate it across disciplines.
To build a common understanding that each student chooses to be a part of a community, sharing in the responsibilities and sacrifices such a commitment brings.
To build a unified student body, embracing the challenges of gender, economic and cultural diversity, fulfilling the commitment to have an inclusive student body which includes economically disadvantaged families, and diverse populations.
To actively encourage parents to partner with Early College Academy and to play significant roles in the daily lives and work of their children.

Personalized Environment

Early College Academy seeks to create a school which maximizes the benefits of its small size and accentuates the positive attributes of a personalized college education offered at Aims Community College. Early College Academy seeks:

To create a community where each student is known and supported to achieve their potential.
To embrace the positive elements of a small school while recognizing, and attempting to mitigate the drawbacks of its size.
To instill in students the desire and the knowledge of how to pursue independent learning.
To teach with the aim of producing outstanding individual results, rather than a particular pedagogical philosophy that dictates how we teach.

Curriculum

Early College Academy’s instructional model is different than a traditional Early College Academy in the depth and breadth of cooperation between Aims Community College faculty and District 6 faculty. As such, in June 2014, Aims’ faculty members worked with District 6 teachers to define the curriculum for the proposed Early College Academy, to create an innovative, engaging and seamless curriculum. This curriculum aims to maximize student opportunity, maintain high rigor, and provide for student support throughout the process.

The principles of the curriculum include:

A philosophy. A curriculum founded on a carefully thought out philosophy of education and clearly connected to the partnering institutions’ mission statements.
Clear purposes and goals. The curricular goals (intended student development outcomes) of what graduates should know and be able to do to successfully transition from the Early College Academy to a 4-year institution.
A theoretically sound process. Student activities ensure students master the Guaranteed Transfer Pathway curriculum and the Colorado Measures of Academic Success (CMAS).
A rational sequence. The course sequence to form a coherent curriculum based on the stated intended outcomes of both the secondary and post-secondary standards.
High-quality academic support. A very intentional academic support system in place for all students.

The Early College Academy curriculum designed by Aims Community College faculty, in collaboration with District 6 teachers, is a model for high schools throughout the state. The key performance indicators identified in the Education Accountability Act of 2009 (SB 09-163) will be used as the measures of educational success: academic achievement, academic longitudinal growth, academic gaps and post secondary/workforce readiness. State identified measures and metrics for each of these performance indicators are combined to arrive at an overall evaluation of a school’s performance. The intent of Early College Academy is to achieve high performing status.

Contact Information

Address	5590 W. 11th St., Greeley
Main Office / Attendance	970-348-5800
Health Office	970-348-5826
Fax Number	970-348-5830
Office Hours	7:15 a.m. - 3:30 p.m.
Monday School Hours	8:55 a.m. - 3:25 p.m.
Tuesday-Friday School Hours	7:55 a.m. - 3:25 p.m.
Facebook Page	ECA Greeley