Students gain experience outside of classroom

The students within the Early Childhood Education program at Northglenn High School are taking their education to the next level. For the first time ever, students in this program are earning college credit while they are still enrolled in high school. This concurrent enrollment agreement is through Front Range Community College and students are obtaining credit in ECE 1011 and ECE 1031, which allows them to earn their Early Childhood Assistant Teacher Certificate. They are able to walk right into a career in Early Childhood Education and many of them intend to after graduation.

With teacher shortages at an all time high, these students are gaining hands-on experience by volunteering their time at a community preschool center. The partnership with Step By Step Early Learning Center started over 20 years ago and continues to this day. By the end of this school year, these ECE students will have volunteered more than 20 hours working with early childhood students. The experiences they have had within this program have been truly invaluable and will help to shape their future careers in education.

As the saying goes, teaching is a work of the heart and the Early Childhood students at Northglenn High School certainly have heart. There is no doubt that they are going to make an impact on this world and on all of the future children they will work with.

This story exemplifies our ELEVATE Focus Area: Outside-the-Classroom Learning. Sharing stories about how the district offers students multiple learning opportunities outside the traditional classroom providing various pathways to success.