Five Stamford High Seniors Earn Associate’s Degrees through Early College Studies Program
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Stamford Public Schools is proud to announce that five seniors from the Stamford High School (SHS) Early College Studies (ECS) Program graduated this week from CT State Norwalk with associate’s degrees in computer science. The Stamford High students who graduated from CT State Norwalk are:
- Alfred Gascon
- Ritchie Jara
- Shashank Peela
- Alec Stark
- Nicholas Sutin
In addition to participating in SHS graduation festivities this June, the students also walked in Wednesday's CT State Norwalk Graduation Ceremony held at the Hartford HealthCare Amphitheater in Bridgeport.
All five students have committed to four-year colleges or universities to continue their studies. Gascon will attend Penn State University; Jara, Peela, and Sutin will attend the University of Connecticut; and Stark will attend Juniata College.
The Stamford High School Early College Studies Program is a rigorous, intra-district academic program open to all Stamford students regardless of their attendance zone high school. ECS enables motivated students to simultaneously earn their high school diploma from Stamford High and an associate’s degree from CT State Norwalk in as few as four years. Students may apply to the program beginning in fall of their eighth-grade year, and applications remain open until all available freshmen seats are filled.
SHS ECS began with a single cohort of 40 freshmen in fall 2017 and this school year includes 141 students in grades 9-12. The ECS Program has graduated 20 students with associate’s degrees since 2021, and more than 200 ECS students have graduated from SHS with college credits toward their associate’s or bachelor’s degree in computer science-related fields.
Early College Studies at Stamford High School is a collaboration between Stamford Public Schools and CT State Norwalk. The program is based on the Pathways in Technology Early College High School (P-TECH) model, an innovative merging of high school and college curriculum.