Early College finds a home in Costa Mesa

Early College High School appears set to have a home this fall as the Newport-Mesa Unified School District and Coastline Community College ended a week of anxiety by reaching an agreement on a permanent facility.

Last week, Newport-Mesa put a halt on student recruitment at Early College due to uncertainty over where the campus, which opened last August in temporary classrooms, would reside next year. Supt. Jeffrey Hubbard announced at Tuesday’s school board meeting, however, that Coastline had agreed to house the school at its site in Costa Mesa.

To parents, many of whom had worried that Early College might have to fold without a permanent home, the news came as a relief.

“We’re just extremely ecstatic that staff and the administrators from Coastline were able to come to an agreement,” said PTA President Janet Krochman. “We feel very strongly about the program.”

She added that Early College, which had already created a recruitment video for this spring, would go forward with its plans to visit schools in the coming weeks. The first new campus in Newport-Mesa since 2001, Early College allows students to earn a high school diploma and an associate in arts degree in five years or less.

This year, the campus has only freshmen, but over the coming years, Early College plans to add the three upper grades one level at a time. The school’s maximum enrollment is 400 students, with 100 per class.

Coastline President Ding-Jo Currie said the Costa Mesa site would suffice for the fall, although she added that Coastline might pick another location as the school continues to grow. For now, the college plans to install portables on the campus to accommodate enough students.

“We will certainly take into consideration the needs for Early College High School, especially if Early College High School continues to have the kind of success it’s experiencing,” Currie said.

Chuck Hinman, Newport-Mesa’s assistant superintendent of secondary education, praised Coastline for helping to reach an agreement. He said the district had never considered abandoning Early College, but acknowledged that it may have seemed that way to many a week ago.

“The school district was not going to make a promise to another 100 kids that it could not fulfill,” Hinman said. “Until we knew we could continue that promise, we were not going to recruit the class.”