Click on the link below to see a slideshow of photos from the Fall Institute. This year's event included attendees from our first ECHSs, started in 2003, as well as from our newest schools, which opened in Fall 2008. Thank you for making our event a success!

This year's Fall Institute is hosted by Sacramento City College and The Met Sacramento. All meetings will be taking place on the Sacramento City College campus. It begins with registration and a Continental Breakfast at 9:00 am on Friday, October 24, with the meeting starting at 10:00 am. This year, community college presidents and high school superintendents will be meeting at 1:00 pm. There will be a reception on the Sacramento City College from 5:00 pm - 6:00 pm on October 24. No activities are planned that evening. Lodging is at the Doubletree Hotel, 2001 Point West Way, Sacramento. We will gather again on Saturday at 8:30 am, starting with a Continental Breakfast. We will adjourn at 12:00 noon. For more details, click on "read more".

The Foundation’s first Intersegmental Partnerships Advisory Committee on Policy retreat this July worked toward a promising statewide commitment to early college high school-friendly policies. Representatives from early college high schools, partner colleges, charter school organizations, California education agencies, and other ECHS intermediaries met to develop a better understanding of current policies and explore how policies can be strengthened to benefit ECHSs. 

One of the highlights of the retreat was participation by high-level education officials, including California Assistant Secretary for Higher Education Vince Stewart, California Department of Education Assistant Superintendent Patrick Ainsworth, and California Community Colleges Executive Vice Chancellor Steve Bruckman. Featured speakers included Vaughn Next Century Learning Center principal Yvonne Chan, also a member of the state Board of Education, Jobs for the Future’s Joel Vargas, and Foundation President and CEO Paul Lanning.

The Foundation works with Jobs for the Future, the ECHS Initiative national coordinator, to advance education policy in California. In addition to organizing the committee, the partnership also produces policy documents and distributes information statewide.

The Foundation's early college high schools celebrate the first year that students are graduating with both a high school diploma and college credits under their belt. 

City Arts & Technology High School (San Francisco) and their charter organization, Envision Schools, are profiled on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation website.  In 2007, the Foundation for California Community Colleges provided funding for City Arts & Tech to convert to an early college high school.