Bard High School Early College Queens: An Innovative Approach to Education

Bard High School Early College (BHSEC) is a series of early college schools with multiple campuses in the United States, enrolling approximately 3,000 students across all campuses. Bard High School Early College Queens (BHSEC Queens) stands out as an innovative academic institution founded on the belief that students are ready for serious college work at age 16. It is part of the Bard Early College network of Bard College established to provide adolescents in American public school systems with the chance to go farther and faster than the status quo allows. Like its sister school in Manhattan, Bard Queens compresses the work of four years of high school and two years of college into four years, and students graduate with both a high school diploma and a two-year associate's degree. The course offerings are built around a college-level curriculum, enabling students to earn a high school diploma and up to 60 college credits.

The Bard High School Early College Model

The Bard High School Early Colleges (BHSECs), first opened in 2001, are Bard’s effort to extend the liberal arts college experience to public high school students who might not otherwise have access to it. The schools allow students to begin their college studies two years early, graduating with a Bard College Associate in Arts degree in addition to their high school diploma. Students complete their high school studies in the ninth and tenth grade, after which they begin taking credit-bearing college courses under the same roof. Unlike some dual-enrollment programs, students stay on the same campus for all four years, and both high school- and college-level courses are taught by the same faculty.

The BHSECs offer public high school students rigorous coursework and exposure to other markers of the liberal arts experience, the opportunity to earn college credit and an associate’s degree alongside their high school diploma, and intensive support in applying to and transitioning to a four-year college or university.

Key Elements of the BHSEC Model

Several key lessons stand out in the BHSEC model:

Early college is a viable and valuable strategy not only for public and community colleges, but also for private, selective colleges. The success of the BHSEC model has shown that a rigorous liberal arts experience can be adapted effectively to an early college program and that selective colleges with a track record of success have a lot to offer in this field.
Hiring and training quality faculty is critical to success, although doing so may be challenging given the unique demands for teaching early college and the pool of applicants available. For BHSEC, faculty who have experience with both university teaching and K-12 teaching are ideal, although rare, which poses a challenge for school administrators.
Developing and maintaining a positive relationship with the local school district is another challenging but necessary component of establishing a successful early college, to ensure that the valuable aspects of the model can thrive within the regulatory and cultural constraints of the district.
Balancing access and preparation is essential. There is a tension that must be balanced between the objective of expanding access to a high quality, liberal arts college education to lower-income young people and ensuring that students who enroll in early college are sufficiently prepared to thrive in that environment. BHSEC, which employs a rigorous multi-step process for admissions, believes that it is striking the right balance between preparation and access, and that rigor itself is a necessary challenge for students.

Bard College's Commitment to Early College Education

Bard College is deeply committed to expanding access to a liberal arts education beyond the confines of its residential campus. Bard has established satellite campuses in several countries that do not have a tradition of liberal arts education, including Kyrgyzstan, Hungary, Russia, and Palestine. The Bard Prison Initiative (BPI), which started in 2001, brings a liberal arts education to incarcerated individuals. Recently, Bard has launched an additional endeavor, the Bard Microcolleges, to bring a liberal arts education to communities where students may have more difficulty accessing higher education. In addition, BHSEC is not Bard’s only early college offering. Bard also operates Early College Centers, which allow public high school students to take undergraduate college courses tuition-free. These students enroll part-time, unlike BHSEC students, and still attend their local high school.

Read also: Exploring Bard Bronx

The motivation for Simon’s Rock, the first early college established in the United States, which began in 1966 and became part of the Bard College network in 1979, was the belief that young people were prepared for a rigorous college curriculum at an earlier age. However, not all students who may have benefited from the private early college experience could afford it, so Bard brought this model to a public setting to reach a wider range of students, utilizing a large part of the early college model from Simon’s Rock.

Bard High School Early College Queens: A Closer Look

In response to the high demand from New York City public school students for the BHSEC Manhattan campus, Bard expanded to a second location in the city in 2008, this time in Queens.

Location and Facilities

Housed in leased space on the 6th and 7th floors of an office building that also houses the High School of Applied Communication and the Academy of Finance and Enterprise, Bard Queens has sunny rooms and well-lit corridors that circle an interior atrium. White walls and dark green lockers give the space a crisp, clean feel. There are dance studios, an art room and a small theater, but no gymnasium. Physical education is taught in an exercise room.

Diversity and Inclusion

The school makes an effort not only to enroll students of different races, ethnic groups and backgrounds, but also to make them feel welcome once they arrive. Black Lives Matter posters in the corridors, a special section of books about LGBTQ issues in the school library, and anti-bias training for the teachers are hallmarks of a school that takes diversity seriously. The school actively recruits low-income students and sets aside 63 percent of its seats for students who are eligible for free or reduced price lunch.

Academics and Curriculum

Students complete the high school curriculum in their first two years. For example, they study U.S and Latin American history in their first year and World History-typically a two-year course-in their second year. They choose Spanish, Latin or Chinese to learn as a foreign language. In their second two years, they choose from a range of college courses such as African history, Race and Power in America, organic chemistry and computer science.

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The course offerings are built around a college-level curriculum, enabling students to earn a high school diploma, up to 60 college credits. The school offers AP Courses such as Algebra II (Advanced Math), Arts (College Course [Credited]), Biology (College Course [Credited]), Calculus (College Course [Credited]), Chemistry (Advanced Science), Chemistry (College Course [Credited]), Comp Sci/Math Tech (College Course [Credited]), Econ/Gov (College Course [Credited]), ELA (College Course [Credited]), Global History (College Course [Credited]).

Student Life and Culture

Bard Queens is a serious place. When you ask the kids what they do for fun, they might tell you how they make jokes about imaginary numbers, or research the effects of ballet on the brain, or coach a little sister’s elementary school chess team. A favorite school event: Pi Day (March 14, get it?), when students bake pies and see who can recite the most decimals of pi.

The workload is heavy, and three hours of homework a night is typical. (One girl told us she does five hours of homework a night.) Grading policies are punishing, and kids who got easy As in middle school find they have to work hard to get Cs at Bard. But students seem happy and engaged, and the work, they say, is interesting-never busy work.

Faculty and Staff

BHSEC faculty are highly qualified, with over two-thirds of faculty holding a terminal degree and many having prior college teaching experience. Class size is 18 to 22, significantly smaller than the typical New York City high school class size of 34. That means teachers have time to give students individual attention and help them revise their research papers. The smaller classes are possible because the school receives significant financial support from Bard College.

Non-teaching staff include traditional high school roles such as guidance counselor and principal, but also college-specific roles such as director of college transfer and dean of academic affairs.

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College Counseling and Outcomes

The school’s college counselor gives thoughtful advice not only about admissions but also about financial aid. Many graduates enter CUNY, SUNY or Bard College as juniors. Graduates have also been admitted to Vassar, Haverford, Barnard, Brandeis and Mount Holyoke.

Special Education

The school typically does not serve a lot of students with special needs, but those who attend get a lot of support. Some students take a special class designed to teach organizational skills.

Key Statistics and Data

Academic Score: 81.87% (ranked #23 out of 419 schools)
Survey Score: 81.32% (ranked #156 out of 454 schools)
Pupil-Teacher Ratio: 13.0
Attendance %: 94%
Graduation %: 94%
College %: 96%

Student Demographics

Male: 36.16%
Female: 63.64%
Asian: 29.40%
Black: 14.90%
Hispanic: 30.80%
White: 21.20%

Teacher Demographics

Asian: 14.00%
Black: 10.00%
Hispanic: 12.00%
White: 60.00%

The Broader Impact of Early College Programs

Opportunities for early exposure to college experiences have shown promise in improving the prospects for high school students both to graduate high school and attain postsecondary degrees. Dual enrollment, where students are simultaneously enrolled in both high school and college, allows students to take college-level courses at their high school, at a college campus, or even online. Early college high schools, such as the BHSECs, combine both simple and dual credit courses to provide high school and college coursework through one comprehensive program for students.

Early college programs generally grant students an associate’s degree upon completion, or two years’ worth of college credit. Because these credits are earned during high school, there is usually little or no cost for students and their families.

Benefits of Early College Programs

Increased College Enrollment: Early college students are more likely to enroll in college than their peers are, with this effect being stronger for two-year college enrollment than four-year college enrollment.
Increased Degree Attainment: Early college students are also more likely to earn a college degree than their peers, with similar effects across demographic characteristics.
Reduced Remedial Coursework: Dual enrollment increased high school graduation rates, increased the likelihood of attending a four-year college, decreased the need to take remedial courses in college, and increased the accumulation of college credits for low-income students.
Improved College Performance: Once in a college or university, dual enrollment students also perform similarly to or better than traditional students in terms of grades.
Decreased Time to Degree: The existing studies suggest that dual enrollment does decrease the time needed to obtain a four-year degree.

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