Advancing Early College

Join OneGoal and school teams from across the state to develop your Early College program and increase student success. In this two-day, practitioner-centered experience, your school team will assess your current program, collaborate with experts to identify areas of growth, and chart your path forward to programmatic success.

 

Massachusetts’ Early College Initiative has the potential to close opportunity gaps for students and support education equity across the state. Robust Early College programs create opportunities for students to earn college credits, explore new pathways, and develop their ability to navigate higher education. While the potential for impact and scale are exciting, the risks are high. For students, a negative experience in Early College courses has implications for a student’s transcript as well as their confidence and sense of belonging in college. For districts, Early College requires significant financial investment and staff capacity to develop partnerships, build out the program, and ensure student access and success. 

With so much at stake, OneGoal Massachusetts has developed a two-day workshop for Early College school teams to get under the hood of their programs by examining strengths, assessing gaps and creating actionable improvement plans. OneGoal has partnered with early college programs across Massachusetts and Houston leading to notable successes in course completion, attendance, and post secondary enrollment rates.  Led by OneGoal Staff who are practiced in supporting Early College programs both in Massachusetts and Texas, school teams will walk away from this experience with concrete and practical strategies, solutions, and timely next steps for improving their programs. The timing is designed to support designated programs to plan for the coming school year and be positioned to complete their end of year evaluation.

 

This practitioner-centered experience is ideal for high school and higher education administrators who are responsible for design and implementation of an Early College program. This includes: 

  • Teams with an established Early College program looking to assess their work and make improvements
  • Teams looking to scale their program or add new pathways/course offerings
  • Teams currently considering/actively applying for Early College designation who want to pressure test their program design and implementation plans

 

Objectives for participating school teams: 

  • Identify gaps and strengths in their early college program
  • Define their program problem statements and develop solutions/strategies to address them
  • Collaborate with other early college teams, OneGoal, and experts in the field
  • Craft clear next steps for programmatic success

Two-day Experience

Session I: February 10, 2023

Teams will spend the day deeply focused on understanding and awareness. Namely, aligning and examining strengths and gaps in their early college programs. A critical component in this analysis is OneGoal’s Early College Readiness Assessment Tool, which provides a holistic framework for program self-assessment. The Tool is based on practical program elements and is aligned to MA DESE’s early college framework.

 

Session II: March 3, 2023

Teams will build upon Day 1 by engaging in a full day of generating and evaluating solutions, and prioritizing next steps. Teams will have ample opportunity to leverage the results of their assessment and connect with each other, other teams, and OneGoal to generate multiple solutions and pressure test those ideas to determine which strategies to adopt. They will also walk away with multiple exercises and resources to replicate the experience outside of this space.

Make-up date: March 10, 2023

 

Daily Schedule:

8:30 – 9:00 am: Breakfast + Arrival

9:00 – 4:30 pm: Programming (Lunch provided)

 

Location:

WPS Institute
196 Herrick Rd, Newton, MA

Pricing

OneGoal Partner

  • $750 – Individual rate
  • $1500 – Team rate (up to 5)

Non-partner

  • $1000 – Individual rate
  • $2000 – Team rate (up to 5)
Register Now!

Advancing Early College FAQs

What should I expect to walk away with?

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  • Robust data analysis and visuals aligned to early college program readiness assessment results
  • Concrete ideas, solutions, and implementation steps
  • Guided companion workbook to capture learnings and resources
  • Insights and language to start end of year evaluation

If I am an individual, can I still attend AEC?

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While we encourage folks to attend with at least one other person from the early college program (higher ed + secondary), individuals will walk away with tools and meaningful collaboration to bring back to their programs. Throughout the two day experience, all individuals + teams will have opportunities to connect with other early college practitioners to share and learn from each other.

During the early college program readiness assessment section, individuals will have to assess their program individually and we will provide opportunities to collect team feedback to inform assessment answers prior to the activity on day one.

Who should make up my team?

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This space is designed for educators in secondary and higher education spaces responsible for the design, planning and implementation of an early college program. Ideally, each team would bring folks holding different perspectives of each partner. This may include:

  • Early college coordinator
  • Director of early college (higher ed or secondary)
  • Admission officer
  • Guidance counselors/head of guidance
  • Associate Principal/principal
  • Partnership coordinator/head of partnership

If my entire team cannot attend both days, should we still attend?

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Ideally, there would be continuity for teams between Day 1+2. If all folks cannot attend both days, that is okay and teams are encouraged to debrief takeaways and insights with missing team members.

I am a postsecondary partner with multiple high school program designations. How should I show up for my schools?

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Postsecondary partners are also encouraged to bring multiple practitioners who could serve as proxies for each early college program – or – navigate between multiple teams during the experience on both days with support from OneGoal as needed. OneGoal will provide one hour of optional pre-work for each to align on a few questions/insights prior to day one to ensure perspectives are being shared.

What should I know about arrival and logistics?

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AEC will be located at WPS Institute (196 Herrick Rd, Newton, MA).

Location: WPS is located on a former boarding school campus. Using Waze or Google Maps with the address listed above will bring you onto the campus where WPS is located and then you’ll navigate to the building pictured here (where we’ll spend the day).

Parking: Parking is plentiful. It is available all along the road leading up to the building where we will be. There is also a huge parking lot behind the building. You can park in either place.

Dress: Dress comfortably! School swag is encouraged.

COVID protocols: The WPS Institute building is mask optional. Teams should monitor their health and test prior to the AEC and if you are concerned that you may have COVID. Please reach out to OneGoal staff.