Westwood Independent School District trustees voted Monday night to approve a memo of understanding with two other entities which could lead to its students having the opportunity to participate in the Early College High School Initiative.

Early college high schools are small schools designed to allow students to simultaneously earn a high school diploma and an associate’s degree or up to two years of credit towards a bachelor’s degree.

The Athens Independent School District, in partnership with Trinity Valley Community College, began its Early College High School program two years ago, growing quickly from 25 students the first year to between 50 and 55 students this year, according to WISD Superintendent Dr. Ed Lyman.

The national program, which began with startup support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, targets “at risk” students at the lower socioeconomic levels whose parents did not attend college.

Other students, however, would be allowed to apply for the early college program if WISD and the other entities are ultimately selected in the grant process, according to Lyman.

On Monday, the WISD board voted, 4-1, to approve a memo of understanding with TVCC and the Palestine Independent School District to apply for a $450,000 grant which will be awarded by the Texas Education Agency.

Members Theresa Bambeck, Carolyn Booker, Diane Davis and Lisa Gilkey voted “for” the memo of understanding, with board member Carolyn Mackie cast the dissenting vote.

Board members Scot Kiser and Carey McKinney were absent from Monday’s meeting.

The PISD board is expected to consider the memo of understanding at its next regular meeting Monday.

If approved by the PISD board, Lyman said the grant application deadline is Oct. 28.

“We’re rushing to get it all put together,” Lyman said.

If the application deadline is met, local school officials would then have to wait and see if they are selected for funding from a pool of applicants.

“We are competing,” Lyman said. “It is a competitive grant.”

According to its Web site, the Early High School College Initiative focuses on young people for whom the transition into postsecondary education is now problematic. Its priority is to serve low-income young people; first-generation college goers; English language learners; and students of color, all of whom are statistically underrepresented in higher education and for whom society often has low aspirations for academic achievement.

There were more than 20,000 students in 24 states attending early college high schools as of the 2006-07 school year, with two-thirds of those attendees either African-American or Latino, according to the same Web site. Nearly 60 percent of those early college high school students were eligible for free and reduced lunch, the Web site also indicated.

“Part of this (program) is to show that college success has little to do with socioeconomic status or at-risk status,” Lyman said, “but it has to do with opportunity...Given the opportunity, they’re performing very well.”

In the early college high school setting, students begin taking college courses during their freshman year in high school.

“By the time they graduate from high school, they’ll have up to 60 hours of college and an associate’s degree,” Lyman said.

The WISD superintendent said the WISD/PISD combination would have to produce a total of least 85 students to receive the grant’s full amount. If the two local districts do not attract that many students, he said the program could then be extended to students attending other Anderson County public school districts.

Texas State Technical College, which is coming to Palestine in 2010, would be part of the local early high school college program upon their arrival in the community.

Mackie expressed concerns that TVCC would be the grant’s sole recipient, while also indicating reservations about possible additional financial burdens placed on the district as a result of the program.

“With us having approved a deficit budget (for the 2009-10 school year), we’re assuming the risk,” Mackie said. “That concerns me after approving a deficit budget.”

There would be some “startup costs” associated with the early high school college program, according to Lyman, adding that it would soon become “self sustaining.”

The superintendent also said the early high school college program would co-exist along with the district’s current dual enrollment classes. In dual credit courses, Westwood juniors and seniors are bussed to TVCC’s Palestine campus four days a week and can take two courses per semester, earning up to a total of 30 hours prior to their high school graduation.

“We will still have the dual credit enrollment,” Lyman said. “That program is going to continue on. This program is more intense.”

Lyman has seen the program up close during a 2 1/2-year stint as superintendent of the Judson Independent School District in San Antonio from 2005-07 and is a firm believer in the concept.

“I think it’s outstanding,” Lyman said. “I really don’t see a down side to it.”

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Paul Stone may be contacted via e-mail at pstone@palestineherald.com