If I had to rank all of my hundreds of votes as a Sierra College Trustee, my vote to create the Ghidotti Early College High School, in partnership with the Nevada Union High School District, is bound to be in the top five.

The Union did a great job reporting on the success of the school’s first four years, and talking to a few members of its first graduating class of seniors – 9 of whom graduated from high school with a college degree!

The seniors at Ghidotti Early College High School readily admit that, as 14-year-olds on a community college campus, they acted, well, 14.

There was some horseplay; there was the occasional plunge into the ornamental pond at the center of campus.

But four years after the start of the educational experiment — in which students take college and high school courses simultaneously — seniors say they’re older, wiser and well-positioned for their next steps in higher education.

“It makes you more mature,” said senior Tiffany Craddick. …

Some seniors say they felt like guinea pigs, as school administrators worked out the kinks in the unconventional program.

They wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Small and tight-knit, Ghidotti is “like a family.”

“When I first went to high school, it felt exactly like middle school,” said senior Matthew Ames, who started out at the much larger Bear River High School. “There was one class after the other.”

Then, a friend told him about Ghidotti, which this year reached its maximum enrollment of about 160 students.

“I was very impressed,” Ames said. “You get to know each other well. It’s like a family environment.”

Ghidotti is one of about 15 early college programs in California and among 200 nationwide. Funded by a start-up grant of $400,000 from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, early college programs are an effort to blur the line between high school and college, where students tend to fall between the cracks.

After Ghidotti, “college is a lot less daunting,” said Anders.

The free program is not limited to high achievers: Ghidotti accepts students of all academic backgrounds, as long as they commit to working hard.

The philosophy behind early college is that even underachieving students can succeed when they’re challenged by rigorous courses and supported in a small, personal environment.

For the past three years, Ghidotti has posted higher scores in the California Academic Performance Index than Nevada Union or Bear River high schools.

Students start the day by checking in with a teacher and taking a study skills course called AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination).

In other high schools, AVID targets a small group of disadvantaged students. At Ghidotti, everyone participates. The program supports students as they transition from middle school to college, and helps them plan out a schedule combining core high school subjects and college courses.

School days look more like college. Rather than seven back-to-back periods, students have open blocks during the day.

“There’s more responsibility,” said Craddick. “There are all these open periods, so we have to discipline ourselves.”

The moral of this story? You can take kids (many of whom are the first in their family to attend college courses), expect great things and they will respond to the challenge.

I know resources are tight, but we need to do more of this all over California and America.

Photo Credit: The Union / John Hart