It’s Early High School College Week, and the DeKalb Early College Academy is celebrating with some impressive results.

DECA, a joint venture between Georgia Perimeter College and the DeKalb County School District, is one of ten such programs operating across Georgia and will graduate its sixth and largest class yet this May.

“We have 86 graduates in the class of 2015,” says program coordinator Kathryn Hall. “Thirty of those students are on track to earn their associates from GPC, and all 30 will participate in GPC’s commencement ceremony." 

DECA enables college-ready high school students from underrepresented groups to spend their first two years of high school at the academy in Stone Mountain and their final two at Georgia Perimeter’s Clarkston Campus.

Academy students earn high school and college credits simultaneously through dual enrollment. This means they can graduate from high school and earn a college associate degree at the same time. Statistics found at the Jobs for the Future website show early college graduates enroll in college at a higher rate than non-early college students.

Hall notes that DECA receives continual aid enabling direct support to help students succeed. For example, she cites the $1 million Fitzgerald Foundation grant that Georgia Perimeter received last year for various GPC student success initiatives.

“Through the Fitzgerald Foundation, DECA offers tutorial time five days a week in economics, chemistry, biology, math, English and social science and runs a summer college boot camps for rising DECA 11th graders who will be enrolled at GPC in the fall,” Hall says.

Georgia Perimeter will celebrate Early High School College Week by hosting 10th graders on campus for a “Taste of GPC.” They'll take their COMPASS college entrance exams this week and then sit it on a college class.