As D.C. struggles with youth violence and troubling truancy rates, a new program is not only keeping teens in school, it’s also getting them free college credits before they graduate high school.
At the Advanced Technical Center, up to 300 students from all grade levels in high school can enroll in college-level classes and earn college credits and certifications in nursing and cybersecurity.
“We have, this year, 191 students coming from 15 schools across D.C.,” Andrea Zimmermann, an administrator at the center, said.
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Sophomore Ezechiel Tano is in the nursing program and hopes to study at Georgetown University to follow in his parents’ footsteps to become a doctor.
“I believe that this program helps me avoid that kind of trouble because being a student that really cares about what he does and all that, like, what I do, I just like learning a lot, so I feel like it just helps me stay out of that other stuff, like skipping all this and that,” Tano said.
Junior Larry Bisco plays football for Friendship Colligate, which just won its second straight state championship. He says that taking his cybersecurity classes now will help him in the future.
“I'm a student-athlete, so if I can earn college credits right now, I would be able to make my life easier when I get to college. [I] won't have to take as many classes to get all my college credits,” Bisco said.
The center is a two-year program that offers up to 20 college credits. Along with the college credits, students can receive a $15,000 a year scholarship from Trinity Washington University, which is an academic partner with the program. Although it’s only in its second year, Zimmerman can see it working already.
“Eighty-seven percent of students who finished last year came and joined us again for the second year of the program. And to me, that's a really high mark and one that shows us that students want to stay and they want to finish,” Zimmerman said.
The Advanced Technical Center is now accepting applications for the next school year.
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