Two academic milestones during the same calendar year.

Six Tamaqua Area High School students will not only receive their high school diplomas this year, but are also graduating with associate degrees from Lehigh Carbon Community College.

“We are finishing our third year,” said Jennifer Aquila, Director of High School Connections at LCCC. “It’s called the Early College Program. Local school districts and LCCC partner together where the kids take LCCC classes; but it’s not just taking classes, it’s an intentional class registration plan - an intentional degree plan. The idea is, at the end of their senior year, that they’ve taken the classes that make up one of our associate degrees. The same classes count toward some of their high school graduation requirements.”

The Tamaqua students started taking classes at LCCC’s Morgan Center in Tamaqua during their sophomore year of high school.

Tamaqua senior Lucas Gregoire is one of the six LCCC graduates.

“It was really different,” Gregoire said. “Once we got a few weeks under our belts, we got used to the college setting. The professors were very nice and understanding. It was overall a great experience that prepared us for what college will be like in the future. It mostly eliminated my gen-eds. That was a huge plus for me going into this program. It allowed me to shave one year off my six-year Pharmacy program at the University of Pittsburgh.”

Aquila explained that each graduating student now has at least 61 college credits.

“Community college credits are highly transferable,” Aquila said. “The degree they’re getting is an Associate in Arts in General Studies. It’s really a foundation. It’s a lot of your social sciences and liberal arts types of classes. … They get an opportunity to take some specialized stuff, which helps them figure out what they want to do, but for the most part they take gen-eds.”

Megan Schoener compiled 72 credits during her tenure and will be attending Millersville in the fall for Early Childhood Education.

“It was a great opportunity and we learned a lot about ourselves, what we wanted to do and helped learn time management,” Schoener said.

“I think we all grew a lot. I would definitely tell the younger students to try it out.”

The other dual graduates of Tamaqua are Ashlei Arthurton, Madison Berk, Adrian Bilodeau and Alden Gilbert.

Gilbert, who is heading to Penn State University, encourages more Tamaqua students to take advantage of the LCCC program.

“Don’t be scared to go into that college setting,” advised Gilbert, who is set to major in Aerospace Engineering.

“The school really puts an effort into balancing the college experience to high school, so you get all of the high school experience and the benefits of taking the college classes at LCCC.”

According to Aquila, there are 19 total high school students from Tamaqua, Jim Thorpe, Lehighton, Parkland, Whitehall, Allentown and Lincoln Leadership school districts who will be receiving LCCC degrees this year.

The six Tamaqua graduates were able to take all of their LCCC courses either right in town at the Morgan Center or online.

“These six students are academically overachievers,” Aquila said. “I have found that Tamaqua students are very invested in both academics and their future. Watching a student at the beginning who’s not so sure how to do it, to at the end coming to me and telling me what they want to take - that was nice to watch.”