The meeting was an Early College Round Table with Governor Baker, Lieutenant Governor Polito, Secretary Peyser, and Mayor Coogan at Durfee High School in Fall River, Massachusetts, on April 25, 2022. The primary focus was on the success and benefits of the Early College program, which allows high school students to earn college credits at no cost. Several students, including Carlos Mercano, Ashtash Bhandari, Lorraine Dale, Carolyn Dupress, Jaseen Mahmoud, Ayanna Ellis, Nikolai Rodriguez, Sophia Chen, Tian Tran, Malakai Inaubry, and Jesse Igertomba, shared their personal experiences. They highlighted how the program provided academic support, helped them explore career paths, and offered a significant financial advantage by reducing future college debt. Many students gained admission to colleges like Bridgewater State, Boston University, and UMass Boston, often with full scholarships or a substantial number of credits. Teachers Katherine Drummie and Maya Lloyd detailed the 'One Goal' program, which provides curriculum and advisement for college readiness and career exploration. Governor Baker expressed strong support for expanding the Early College program statewide, noting its particular success in city schools and its potential to become a fundamental part of high school education.
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0:28good afternoon on behalf of fallen public schools i welcome you governor baker lieutenant governor polito secretary pizer mayor coogan and all of our elected officials um it's always a great opportunity when any elected official comes to our school in our city to see their investment at work and early college has been a tremendous investment and our scholars as you see around here and you'll hear from them
0:52have really chosen to take advantage of the opportunity and you'll hear of the impacts
1:04that's right he likes to learn like and really early college has been a game changer for fall river and for our scholars it really has not only afforded them an opportunity to engage in college credit for uh no cost but it also is a stepping stone to future success so i welcome the opportunity for you to hear from them firsthand because really they're the stars of the show so i'm gonna turn over
1:26to matt um our principal and then we're gonna oh mayor coogan we'll we'll give it to him first the kids are the star of the show so of course we're gonna let them talk more than us but at the same time it's great to have both the governor and lieutenant governor come down to see this fabulous school and this fabulous group of kids and hear from them firsthand how well dual enrollment or early college has
1:48helped them and we can't wait to hear it and i'll turn it back to my good friend matt damaris thank you mayor coogan governor baker senator governor polito secretary pizza thank you for being here i could go on for hours about the great things going on at durfee high school and i think you've noticed that some things are happening in fall river over is on the up and this is another example
2:06of it i'm so proud of the hard work that staff has put into supporting our students who are really doing all the work you know we've had a long-standing relationship with bristol community college with dual enrollment and this takes it to the next level with an early college programming with with bristol community college bridgewater state and a pending pilot program for the fall with umass
2:27dartmouth as well so we got the trifecta completed down here on the south coast so without further ado what i want to do is introduce you a couple of students that are going to kick off with a couple of spotlight stories then we'll open up a round table here so we have ashtash bhandari and carlos mercano whoever wants to go first put you on the spot carlos is going first once you share a
2:47little bit of your experience with bridgewater state um the bridgewater state experience has been carlos so you're a junior or senior i'm a senior okay yeah so it's been a good experience uh thank to mrs bulge and miss santoro i actually junior year i didn't even want to join the program um i wanted to take ap classes but then mrs borg mentioned to me the the perks of the college program i
3:11was free how was it was more of a what i would say a long term commitment rather than something short-term so with long-term commencement commitments come long-term benefits and all sorts of great things i was able to accomplish like i'm not sure how much credits i've been able to get but i think it's a full semester as soon as i go in so i'll go in a semester ahead of everybody else
3:37not everybody else but a good amount of people so carlos what what ap classes were you thinking about taking and what early college courses did you take i wanted to take uh ap i think it was seminar if i'm not mistaken then i then i ended up taking junior year i took i had marketing i was in bcc junior year okay but now i'm in a bsu but in bcc i took marketing yeah i
4:01think that's the only one i took i took marketing and then now in bsu i've taken journalism uh social welfare was that english yeah english 101 to psychology is other ones i've taken um i would say that i'm glad i was able to take the early college and i didn't go the ap route because like i said it was long-term uh benefits and success but also because it it was almost like a guaranteed thing so
4:31for with the ap exam you have to you go throughout the whole year you take english out the whole year and then you have to pass the ap exam in order for it to translate as college credit yep but here with the with the college courses already personally i don't get c's but if i get a c in the class you know what i mean i graduate yeah i think honestly it's been a great
4:57experience i'm thankful for it uh i think if you have the opportunity that you should definitely do it for for example just honestly the standout reason is that it's free but i like to say my the reason why i'm happy i joined is because of the relationships i was able to form with the staff and the school miss santorum mrs bull my peers you know i'm saying um other classmates i i would never even
5:21talk to if it wasn't for this program i'm glad i was able to meet these kind of people same interests as me and yeah just thank you for the opportunity overall what are you thinking about doing next year next year i'm going to go to school for marketing at bridgewater state i was fortunate enough to get a full ride and um i want to pursue marketing because i
5:42feel like it doesn't put me in a box for example i can sell this mic i can sell this water bottle like
6:05so um hello my name is ashtash bonnari um i like to start off with a little story uh i came to america last year during my junior year and um to be frank i didn't think college would be within my reach because i again i came to america with no knowledge of the education system um i uh my during the pandemic yeah wow i know it was quite scary
6:35and uh plus i didn't even think i'd be meeting half of the people here um anyway so where was that when did you when did you when did you get here uh i came here during my junior year last year okay so like in the summertime or the spring or something like um i believe uh during the end of first term i believe okay uh during september october um so my plan wasn't generally to go to
7:05college i was thinking taking a gap year and probably working before going to college but thank thankfully miss fellows she recommended me to take this program i take early college classes through one goal and basically it helps one goal helps me the advisor they persistently made me try to apply for colleges and they checked out and checked up on me every time which motivated me uh to to apply to colleges
7:38which kinds of classes did you take i took marketing my junior year and history the western world history in my senior year i took i took english 101 and um i believe your business stats yeah thank you did you how did you do i did great in them straight a's it went from i don't think i'm going to college yeah and then to now i'm already uh i got accepted to
8:16a college so where did you get accepted boston university it was worth the trip in the kelvin and plus i uh the people that i met along the way were pretty amazing um like i said i came here during covid so i wasn't expecting to meet anyone um i i was for i actually made my first two friends through this program on jin kwon and jayden so it helped me really connect with
8:42other people too so what brought your um my dad works here so uh i i came here when i was a kid too but i had to go back and do to my friends and you're not a kid anymore i i i was here for like four years uh like for the uh my from my first grade to my fourth grade i had to go back because of family issues you both talked about guidance and
9:07having some a faculty member like really nudging maybe that's a light word like helping you make this decision so that was a big part of how you got onto the path yeah i feel like um i'm sorry but the the relationships and uh the bonds you you form in this group is very like key so for example he mentioned on one goal you have your advisor always on you like yo turns
9:34application in uh this deadline we have scholarships coming up um you you'll be able to get the scholarship get some more money and then um miss santorum's always if i ever feel like uh i can't go anymore like god this is too much especially at the start of the semester i had a conversation where i even wanted to like get out of the program but she convinced me to stay and persevere and
9:56so now now i'm here you know i mean with you guys and it's honestly it's a great thing honestly so can someone give us a little bit of a background on how the schools participate with this and how durfy participates to support the kids who are in the program like does ms santos work for durfee or did she work for one goal as she worked for the program um yeah i'm emma santoro nice to meet
10:25you um i'm our early college advisor here at durfee um it's a position that was created last school year um on the brink of us really expanding and really putting focus and energy into early college um so yes i work at jerfey and for the fallen public school system and i work alongside of kerry bulk and andrew woodward as well as our college partners bristol community college bridgewater
10:47state and the host of people over there who provide support um as well as all the professors and everyone here at school mya lloyd and catherine drummie are two of the support teachers who work with our non-profit one goal to provide that curriculum for secondary uh post-secondary support for the students so the one goal program actually takes a teacher here at durfee high school and gives them a curriculum to follow
11:13them that's going to be my next question some of these programs they're taught on campus some of them are taught at the at the high school years are taught here this current year yes due to covid um we have to bring everything in-house um so it has been really an all-hands on deck on the durfee side of things to help support um live streaming with professors and into the classroom so we
11:36actually do have some professors who do come in person um once or twice a week to provide instruction to the students so that's kind of the current model that we're operating under provided covid and vaccination status and all those things that have been a little bit of a barrier and a challenge but we've done a really good job this year i don't know if you guys can agree students to really help
11:56kind of make it all work there are a lot of moving parts but these kids are amazing and resilient and we're really really proud of all the stuff that they've been doing through this program to really help their own success so and have you all been able to get on campus at some point during the course of the year um yes we have what happens when you go on campus it's actually a pretty amazing
12:15experience uh just sitting in the classroom it's it's different from what what we would normally have here and uh getting that first-hand feel with the teacher teaching you and um you were feeling like an actual college student uh and learning like advanced uh your advanced course this is an amazing experience have you been in classes with college students or just with yourselves um just with ourselves
12:43hi my name is lorraine dale and prior to the early college program durfee already had a pretty established dual dual enrollment program so during my freshman and sophomore year during the summers i would take an extra bcc class for free and during those times we would have i would have classes with other college students but through the early college program they take all the like peers that
13:12within the program and it's just durfee students so there's a lot more support and it's also a lot more tailored to high school students because in the other classes there was a lot less guidance or help from the professor because they already had the expectation as a college student that you would already know yeah how everything worked but through the early college like the classes i've
13:36taken through early college the professors were forgiving and they also gave us more resources on how to do certain work for example like how to do apa citations what are you up to uh like what do you mean next year um i'm going to umass boston and i'm planning to major in chemistry and how much how many early college credits did you get um so between dual enrollment and early college i've taken
14:1012 classes so 36 credits for you that's great thank you um my name is carolyn dupress and i'm currently a junior and i just want to say that the early college program has been such a a blessed and pleasant and an ad advantageous experience that i gotten the opportunity to be a part of and i just want to say that durfee high school is a school with so much history and sometimes and sometimes
14:39this is where my basketball team in high school used to come to die my parents uh my parents also went to durfee and with that history it's so easy to get lost in the negatives that some events have occurred but i'm so happy that you guys have come today to really see the amazing programs that we have to offer the all the positivity we have the reason why i chose durfee was because
15:10of all the programs that they had including the early college program in the amazing music department there's so much good going on here that a lot of people in the community look over and i'm so happy that you guys are here to really um appreciate that so thank you and so what did you take with early college uh so i actually took a i began my courses here with a summer course at bcc i took
15:33a history 111 class and then i chose to continue my studies so i took a public speaking class over at bridgewater thank you mr cunningham and i'm currently with the scene i'm taking a um a u.s government class a poli science class with mr fredericks at bridgewater state terrific thank you and speaking of like those classes and stuff like that there's like there's just something else to do with
16:09that you just tell us who you are oh sorry i'm seeing mahmoud i'm also a junior here um i started out with the public speaking program and there's just like a great irony to it because i went from like doing covid in like homeschooling not homeschooling like remote learning and there was so much to it of just me being disconnected from everything else it was like you turn on the meat you turn on your camera
16:37you like wave hello you turn off your camera go on autopilot for an hour get to your next class it was just this like monotony to it and like getting back into like school and stuff like that to just get to a public speaking class it's just like okay i'm now in deep water i don't know where anything is it's like and then i just stood up there and um
16:59the teachers just like oh like uh your name and a few things about yourself and so like you start to just relearn all the things just like oh right i do have a name again i'm just seen and this is about me and stuff like that and um the people that i've met there they're like some of my like closest friends um i ended up having and there's just like so many different
17:22stories and memories and um you also find like things that you'll never ever learn about someone unless you were to accidentally just prod this little bit more a little quick story was um we have this uh prompt that you have to choose a random question from like a bag and if you get like a question you don't like you can skip that one and then you can skip the next one and you
17:44get this last final question you have to talk about it for like five to six minutes and so i'm unknowing as to what's going to be in there i take the first two very boring questions the last question i get was uh what's your favorite color to most people that was just going to be annoying that is a movie reference of a certain day um like to most people that was that's just
18:11like a normal like five minute talk about how pretty the color blue is or how nice the color red is nobody in that class including the teacher knew that i had been colorblind since birth so i had to spend five minutes standing in front of a group of kids i had barely known to try and convince them that color is overrated and that gray is technically the best because you can't confuse too much
18:38so like i would never have that conversation if i didn't take that public speaking class i would never like be able to just stand up there and be like yeah i don't see the right things but that doesn't mean that like i should have to like conform so it's just some of my greatest memories have been like the conversations i've had like this like many speeches i've given and all the little experiences and um
19:02yeah just everything so you two planning to continue to take early college yes courses as seniors of course how do you this is for everyone too how are you in this process evaluating your career path it's hard enough you have so many different things to think about as high school as i'm the mother of a senior and a sophomore high school and then to also be thinking now they
19:27want me to know what i'm going to do for my next step after high school and college so just kind of fill in some of those details for us as well hi i'm ayanna ellis and i'm a junior so i've always loved history and my first class i took was history and it didn't go so well it was so boring to me and i am in health 101 and it's amazing
19:51and i've always wanted to be a nurse and now it's like definite like it's just so interesting to me and i'm doing so good in the class now and i also take an ap class and i just feel like the college class is so much better i'm doing so much better in my college class now i'm doing good in my ap last year of course but the college class is just so much
20:09more interesting like i feel more comfortable in that class than my ap class so it gave you a chance to try something that you didn't know that you might like or were particularly good at that might lead you to your next steps now i know history is not for me nursing definitely is yeah and to add to that we also have a program called one goal that is intertwined with the early college
20:33program so even though i'm just a junior going to be a senior we have advocates for the one goal program who come and talk to us about potential career fields we'll be interested in or things about financial aid they really uh provide us with the help that we need to get started and that's a really cool benefit and then one goal folks talk a little bit about one goal talk a
20:57little bit one and one goal one goal um so i'm kathryn drummie i am one of the one goal teachers here at durfee i also teach a history class so my heart just broke my school history is good not college is fine um so the way in which we operate the one goal program is that i see the students every single day but on tuesdays and thursdays they have their professor who i live stream into the
21:25classroom and then on mondays and fridays we work on the one goal program that sets the kids up first just by like let's take a career quiz and see what type of fields might even interest us um but then we break down even further from there of like this is how we read a college syllabus this is how we respond to professors and we do a lot of that work within the
21:48classroom which i think has been the biggest benefit for our students as well is figuring out this is how we operate now as a college student versus just the high school student and like event we started working on we'll get back to it um our best fit list for colleges and just kind of going in and saying like you know what i don't really want to travel that far what kind of schools are within the
22:12distance that i want to be able to be within or i want to be a commuter student um and it really i think opens up their eyes to some schools that maybe they've never even heard of like here in massachusetts we have so many colleges and so i think that's been a great opportunity for them to explore but it's also been a good opportunity through the college classes um as we saw to have a
22:41little bit of exploration within there and say you know what i really did like this idea but i'm finding this is wicked cool and we're seeing a lot of movement with it which i think has been great the whole thing about finding the right place to go um is wildly underrated and it's incredibly important and i think helping people work through that question is i mean you know the the 60 000 foot thing is
23:10always well they're all good right but they're not necessarily all a good fit right and um and i i think that's a really important part of this and it's frankly one of the things i like about the early college program generally is it gives kids a chance to see how things fit not just with the schools that are participating in this program but also with the whole idea of what i'm
23:37interested in and what i might want to do with all of it so i'm the basically what you're you're saying in our song here this is the song that we've been singing for the past five years about early college which is gradually developing a greater sense of possibility across the state government i mean if i thought to me this thing would be available in every school in massachusetts and we proposed that a few times and
24:04not got very far with it but the success that you all and others like you have had with this program has made it a lot more interesting to to a lot of the folks in state government which is great because i would like to see this available a lot more broadly for all of the reasons that you have already expressed i would say one of the biggest takeaways that i've had as a
24:30teacher this is my second year in the early college programming is hearing the kids finally say like this is attainable or this is something that i can do whether that's you know going into a four-year college going into a two-year college or even just seeing that they have the skills already within themselves to persevere and to get through a college class and seeing that success within
24:54themselves like getting that first assignment back or finally just finishing the course and being like wow i did this and that satisfaction just that they get within themselves whether then they continue within the early college program or they take it elsewhere we also sorry explore career paths um in one goal as well but having that piece to say i can and then maybe hopefully taking that and
25:19helping to lessen the degree divide change the cycles and really show that these kids have it they can do it yeah to piggyback what off of what happened said i'm maya lloyd i'm also a history teacher here at derpy high school and this is my first year as a one goal program director one goal calls the teacher liaisons i guess you could say program directors um it is the attainability
25:40piece is amazing so um ayanna tien and jesse all took a bcc history class last semester and there are college classes are not easy but as people who majored in history in college being a junior in high school in history class is not easy especially first semester junior year coming back from learning i think a lot of them feel a little defeated in the beginning of the semester but now in april
26:03the mindset has completely changed they are so excited to be taking these college classes we have a community that would not have happened that you don't even get in college classes in general they're working with each other to build study skills they're talking about financial aid and the difference between subsidizing unsubsidized loans as juniors in high school it's it's been huge
26:22i would like to hear from the other two seniors over here who haven't spoken and i want to hear from the other three juniors hi i guess it's my turn um my name is nikolai rodriguez uh as you know i attend bmc durfee high school and i'll be attending boston university's honor college and what is it fall and i will be pursuing international relations as well as economics so what would you like to know
26:58you know what made you interested in this program in the first place and what do you think the benefit to you of it has been okay cool beans um so this whole early college process started in junior year and i was in a i don't know if i'm supposed to be but um i it was it was at a phase of my life where i needed to demonstrate interest because more selective and private institutions
27:22have always been in my mind so i my instincts basically guided me to the college courses and these college courses allow me to demonstrate this this dedication to an institution for example in a shorter amount of time in comparison to an ap class so an ap class is more yearly based while a college class is semester-based so i'm able to increase my workload and um demonstrate that course rigor in a way that
27:54many other individuals are unable to do and get credit and get credit which bu does accept credits thank god actually i'm already on a full ride anyway i'm just a year ahead how do those college courses factor into your gpa oh so i'll take this one i'll take this one because i sent out like thousands of emails about it um so basically these uh college classes are considered um of ap weight or just
28:24college merit i'm sorry i'm sorry bit close i'm a bit close um so in the way that we have a 5.3 scale and if you retain an a-plus which rarely happens um for some odd reason you basically get that huge boost so if you're able to succeed in your college classes you'll be able to rise up the ranks get that credit that doesn't affect your gpa absolutely yes in a good way though in a good way
28:53yeah taking all the dual enrollment early college classes at bcc has definitely helped my gpa like go a lot higher um i'm currently one in my class and i think that the taking the amount of having being able to take more classes than my then other students helped bring my gpa like up and being able to get like a's or a pluses in the classes one would be first sorry one would be first yeah yeah but
29:27there's more financial certainty in the early college program because you're earning the credits that apply to the after school whereas the ap you have to earn that four or five in order to get the credit for the college yeah i know that all too well thank you too a semester if if their semester versus year long you're basically doubling down if you do it all year long yeah often
29:53the ap gives you a placement as opposed to a credit depending on the college you go to so it's not quite a sure thing that you're going to get those credits that's right i was going to say something go ahead go ahead uh what did i want to say go ahead go ahead go ahead hello my name is sophia chen and i'm most likely going to commit to mcphs for a pharmacy route
30:19and i actually only joined the early college program this year so i didn't get the junior year experience and i think it's gone extremely well because i thought i would be really confused on what's going on but the one goal teachers and students gave me a lot of support and i was really grateful for that and i chose to go into early college because in my junior summer year i knew i didn't
30:46really want to take ap lit because i'm not an english person and if i did take it i would be a lot more miserable so one the early college program gave me the opportunity to take the english 101 class at bcc and i like that a lot more because i didn't have to take a ap exam so very grateful having my son said through a four-hour ap exam yesterday afternoon so i understand completely frustration with that
31:21hi my name is tian tran so i just want to add that the one goal program is a three year program your junior senior and your first year in college so like being in this program gives you like a foundation going into college then instead of just like oh i'm going to college without like having no one behind you so like this program like gives you like support for you to go to college and succeed in
31:46your first year especially i also want to add that this program has like specific pathways you want to go so like you can hop through of them so like you don't have just to be like in healthcare or just in marketing there's also like education so like you can hop through see like what fits for you i would like to say and what did you take i'm in the healthcare pathway so i've
32:11taken two courses already so it's a history course and an intro to healthcare and i'm also in the the cte course in durfee which is a health assistant so like that health class gave me like a good foundation for my college class which i think i'm kind of lucky to have okay i guess i'm next my name is malakai inaubry i'm a junior here i just transferred this year from new bedford high so i'm
32:46kind of a trader i went to middle school well i grew up in new bedford so i went to middle school in middle school i did a dual enrollment program with new bedford high and then i've been taking ap classes since my freshman year but um when i moved here this year um i asked my counselor about college classes because i'm really like wanna just get started with my life and
33:20i feel like i need to go to college to do that and i asked and now i'm part of this which is amazing and um i think the great thing about this program is that um at my school there's a lot of kids who are like really amazing and um they just don't get the opportunity to show that they're amazing and they're very apathetic about like life and going to college like even
33:48my friends at that school they're like really mad you're talking now about it yeah they're just getting an early college program by the way yeah good they need it really one of my friends she's taking six ap classes and she gets like no help she feels and it's just like very rigorous but without like the support and i think it's amazing because i have wonderful teachers who just help you with that and
34:22get you on at the right path what did you take um i'm taking poli sci with uh mr that's great hello um my name is jesse iger tomba i am a junior and i take the marketing pathway um through bcc the beginning was my history class western civilization 111 i believe i did not do too well um i got a c minus in the course which i'm used to straight a's every year so um
35:03i would just like to talk about the one goal because i'm in one goal i felt i got so much support because um the c minus really hit me i'm so used to a's like i said so um because i have miss lloyd to help me i felt like she really supported me and now i am in business marketing 101 and i have an a plus in that class i felt like the support is very helpful
35:36very very helpful so you know um part of the process is figuring out not just what you might be interested in but what you're good at and i would argue that you know that's a that's a lifelong process and i got a d in chemistry when i was in high school which was kind of a surprise but it taught me a very interesting lesson which was i wasn't very good in chemistry so as an english major
36:14um i think the i think the support you guys are talking about is critically important to the success of the program overall i i just wish i wish i could get a video of you spending five minutes explaining to people what color is overrated i think that that could be one of the coolest stories i've heard in a long time um it's pretty amazing and uh and and you're basically helping us believe in a program that
36:45the lieutenant governor and i and the secretary were already pretty sold on and i just want to congratulate the folks at durfee and fall river for embracing it and loving it and making it possible for for your students to benefit from it um how many of you before you got involved in this it sounds like about half of you anyway were planning to go to college is that about right
37:08and about half of you were not sure is that a reasonable way to put it that's the other thing about it is it does give people who don't know if they do if they want to go or not a chance to kick the tires on it and see what they think um jim lg can i ask another question just on the experience so you're thinking about yourselves in college or a pathway to career
37:35college or not there's their certificate credential there's all sorts of opportunities for you are there internships and workplace experiences that you think about as part of this program yes um durfee actually yeah i should probably grab the mic um along with myself and many other people who are part of the early college program we've actually been offered an internship with johnson and johnson uh
38:00yeah which is steve and i actually got um you know invited to go and have the opportunity to apply to so there are some internships were given to apply for that's that's amazing yeah that's great i went to that too great so then you can see the beyond like why this is all important like what you're studying what you're working through what you're trying and maybe not succeeding at but trying something else
38:24like where where is this going to take you ultimately when you finish your high school two years or four years and start your career it's great i think something has to be said about the two people to my left lieutenant governor governor they've supported education which gave us this building they supported education which gave us student opportunity act and it's funded these schools to a point where we have this
38:51kind of a forum going and expansion of these programs both on the college level and the high school level they've championed it from day one and um they've been great to fall river and i'm going to miss both of them gee thanks well i'm just stating the facts we've got a lot more work to do i hope so no we're going to see if we can get um a pretty big number in the budget for
39:16early college for next year and maybe see if we can't actually make make it part of sort of the state's education funding formula for all schools because we would love to see this as sort of a fundamental part of the way we think about high school generally and what's been particularly interesting to us is the school districts that have adopted it the most have been city schools it's been
39:45i think people thought at the beginning of this that the schools that would be most likely to adopt an early college program would be the schools in the suburbs not true almost all of the heavy adopters on this have been city schools which from our point of view is exactly what we were trying to do with this program in the first place so is to give kids a chance to see that they could do the work
40:06and and get the support they needed to move to the next level so you're you're pretty much confirming kind of what our hopes were for this program in the first place which is great i also want to thank bridgewater state yeah and bristol and i know chancellor fuller from umass dartmouth uh adding stamina into this program is terrific thank you very much for being so committed to these students
40:33and they stand in a place where they need you obviously enrolled in their schools and you're there's a lot of competition for filling their seats but employers on the other side need students to graduate with skills that are relevant uh to the region's economy so this is all a play around yes you and your education but the future success of this commonwealth so you're you're all doing your part and i just
40:59want to emphasize how important this is there are 50 50 early college programs are over 260 public high schools in massachusetts so it gives you 30 minutes that gives you a sense of the program that you have here and how special and important this is so you're pioneering in a way you're trying to perfect a model so that we can convince other schools to pull into their school district this kind of offering
41:27for their students so thank you thank you thank you you guys have anything else you want to add did we get on the stuff you wanted to talk about yeah i just adore my one goal miss donald isn't here but she means the world she's helped me so much i want to say that to if you there's something that you can say to other schools to get them to get the program into their schools is
41:54that it's uh it's nothing but success so for example them two had uh trouble with their history course but then once they had trouble they had their teachers to back them up and then get them to where they needed to be so regardless if you fall behind or if uh you get a flat tire you know what i mean you you'll catch up and you'll you'll cross the finish line because of everybody you
42:16know i mean your support you got you got people with you it's not that you're by yourself or you're the only one that can help you or things like that so i think that's a that's a good point and two i think it's it's good for like the futures so for example there'll be less student debt because these classes are exactly and then boom to like um i like to say that like the
42:42more you know the better so you get more knowledge so the us we're supposed to be the future of like america you know what i mean so um i got news for you pal you are you know what i mean so if you have uh a group of well-rounded and educated people to make decisions then you can't go wrong obviously you there's no i feel like there's no right or wrong answer in politics i'm not
43:11trying to get into that um yeah i think it's a kid you gain knowledge uh it's a good experience and maybe one of us one day will be in your chair you know what i mean that's right this is all kind of things like that the um you know part of the part of the benefit of the program is the credits okay the the number one reason that a lot of kids
43:39don't finish is they just run out of resources and the interesting thing about this program especially if this part started your junior year is it's possible for a lot of folks by the time they're done with high school to already have two years worth of credits and they already have a relationship with a bunch of schools that know they can do the work and many of them as a result end up getting
44:01scholarships because it's two years to go and they've already proven they can do the work and there's tremendous benefit in that the other thing it does is it gives you a chance as you point out and as you point out as you point out to tackle some of the stuff you would need to tackle that would end up being your first year college courses without the kind of support you can get from this
44:24and the change in the um and the the sort of um the impact of doing that for the first time by yourself um is one of the things that makes it hard for kids to make it through that first year so being able to get what i would describe is sort of the first year under your belt in an environment that's familiar to you is another benefit to this program you mean there's financial benefits there's
44:48educational benefits and there's definitely sort of social development benefits you put them all together and the chances of graduating from college dramatically go up and that's another reason why this is a really important program i see the early college program as like a blueprint like what you said it kind of starts us off and really shows us what college is like at that level
45:17in high school you're very much babied a little bit about oh you make sure you have to do this you have to do this or else you know but in the early college program it's rather than babying it's more uh prepping i've learned so many skills throughout my experiences here such as independence and of course with their public speaking how to speak publicly with people without you know crying a little bit
45:42but definitely that independence making sure i read the syllabus it just gives you that edge in comparison to people who are again going through their first year of college without this experience underneath their belt you're taking ownership you're taking ownership and you're responsible for it but you feel more in control of your future you're driving it it's great so in the interest of time we're gonna wrap up
46:10um this is usually what happens is the adults come in and shut the whole thing down that's what they're doing i feel a lot of us had problems in our history classes but i don't want to leave a bad mark on history for all the history fans out there um i personally loved my history class i i will tell you especially because the teacher made us this is there's no right or wrong right
46:36yeah right exactly i agree i got an a in that class i also had an a in it was my first one and it was the easiest thank you for your time i will second and third that notion so many times i have like peers who will complain about like the poly science class because it's just like oh he's boring he's talking the entire time i'm thriving this is you just need to know what
47:00you're good at and sometimes what you think you need to do to learn the information it might not be that like and sometimes it's also not the fact that they just can't do history it's that the environment of which like uh zoom meeting and then going straight to like trying to apply it it might be like that form of environment that they can't do so like i'm just like oh well have
47:22you seen the chapters in the book and people are like there's a book but yeah all the information is open and it's for you so it's just all about like trying to find what you need to do to make it work and sometimes it will get down to that scenario where it's like this doesn't work for me but you can still like find some way to like grasp at least the
47:43passing grade so you can find something else that does work for you in the next coming few years that we keep talking about if we're closing up i'd like to get the last word um i bet this is the first time you've ever wanted to get the last word right thank you thank you everybody for your participation especially um uh especially mayor coogan over here thank you thank you thank you um thank
48:08you to the early college program as well as you beautiful scholars uh working hard on your history classes apparently um yeah i think i'll pass the mic over now thank you for your time thank you again thank you again my name is nikolai rodriguez let's let you know there's really nothing else to say nikolai thank you don't worry i got you i know i know thank you very much thanks for investing in our students
48:44yeah and i also thrived in that that neglect