Early College Academy

Early College Academy (ECA) is an open enrollment, credit recovery charter school in downtown Columbus that serves students ages 16-22. ECA’s mission is to engage disenfranchised students, low-income youth, first-generation college goers, English language learners and other young people under-represented in higher education in a curriculum that will enable them to simultaneously earn a high school diploma and an associate’s degree for up to two years of credit towards a bachelor’s degree, tuition free. This is one of our favorite field placement opportunities for OSU Social Work students!

CAYCI has partnered with ECA to:

1. support infrastructure development, assessment and progress-monitoring and program design related to student services and school climate;
2. provide service personnel, specifically three student interns from the College of Social Work at The Ohio State University to support program development and service delivery; and,
3. implement professional development opportunities for ECA staff focused on solution-focused schools, innovations in student support, and supporting student learning.

Annually, the CAYCI Team works to:

• Partner with community businesses to raise money for the men’s basketball team.
• Host social-emotional learning activities, implement trauma-informed care professional development trainings for staff, and partner in the community to offer prosocial activities such as yoga, prom, dances, clubs (chess, girls group, cheer/dance teams, etc.)
• In addition, the CAYCI Team intervenes to address attendance concerns among students and develops innovative tracking and incentive programs to encourage students to persist and graduate from high school.

To learn more about ECA, visit their website: Early College Academy (earlycollegecolumbus.com)