Orientation set for fourth Early College High School class

Orientation for students who will enter the Beaufort County Early College High School (ECHS) this fall and their parents has been set for 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Tuesday, July 26, at the high school on the campus of Beaufort County Community College.

Sixty students have been chosen for the high school’s freshman class out of 135 applicants whom represented about 25 percent of the eighth grade population of Beaufort County’s schools, according to Principal Todd Blumenreich.

The addition of the school’s fourth class of ninth grade students brings the student body to about 190, he said.

The offices and half of the classrooms for the school are located in Building 10 on the community college campus. The ECHS will have a total enrollment of 220 students at the end of five years.

While the majority of the school’s applicants initially came from the Washington attendance area, the school has seen an increase in applicants in recent years from the eastern and southern areas of the county, Blumenreich said.

Early College High School students take high school and tuition-free community college courses and graduate in five years with a high school diploma and an associate’s degree in the field of their choice. They can then either head into the work force with job-related skills or transfer to a four-year college.

The students at the high school face a rigorous schedule of classes in the ninth grade – equivalent to honors courses in a traditional high school – that prepare them to begin taking community college courses as early as the 10^th grade.