Grantee Responsibilities

Upon receiving an award from the Center for Native Education, grantees immediately become members of the Early Colleges for Native Youth network. Member schools are responsible for:

Janie Beasley and Swinomish Tribal Chairman Brian Cladoosby champion their local early college.
Photo credit: Jerry Davis

1. Obtain a memorandum of understanding between all stakeholders regarding governance, fees, faculty, courses, and other cross-agency issues.
2. Secure suitable space for the early college high school.
3. Select a principal or site coordinator, one with decision-making authority, for the development, implementation, and sustainability of the school.
4. Form a collaborative committee of school, district, college and tribal or other Indian personnel to meet semi-monthly during the planning year and once monthly during the three pilot, implementation, and transition years to plan, implement and assess all aspects of the early college high school. The committee should include administrators from the school and college with decision-making authority as well as a Native American community representative who can secure support for the early college high school.
5. Hire staff for the early college high school that includes high school and college personnel.
6. Provide school, college and tribal or other Indian personnel with professional development opportunities once quarterly.
7. Construct a five-year course sequence that offers high school and dual credit college courses in grades 9-13. The curriculum should also provide extra academic support for students, integrate American Indian and Alaska Native culture into most of the courses and ensure that the tuition-free course of study will lead to a transfer degree or its equivalent.
8. Determine whether the early college high school will enable adults to attend some of the college classes along with high school students.
9. Develop policies and procedures for the school's operation.
10. Engage community members in school design, implementation, and sustainability.
11. Recruit a minimum of 50% Native American students. Any non-Native students should be underserved learners.
12. Attend three to four early college high school network events each school year hosted by the intermediary for the four years of the grant.
13. Prepare and submit progress and financial reports on a quarterly basis.
14. Collect data, administer surveys, participate in interviews, and host school observations, when requested by documentation and assessment agencies authorized by the consortium's project director and the funders.
15. Use data-based decision making to evaluate and refine the school's efforts.
16. Host a school web site that features the early college high school model.
17. Assume a proactive stance in developing the early college high school and seeking assistance from consortium staff and members.