File photo of new Early College Director April Ortega-Valdez. Photo provided by Glamour Shots

The early college program is an organization that strides to do what is best for its students, to help them achieve the best opportunities by graduating with an associates’ degree and helping students acquire every goal they have set.

With that comes an amazing team that sorts out anything and everything. One of the newest additions to this team is Early College Director, April Ortega-Valdez.

Valdez became the early college director officially late last year.

With her new position, Valdez strives to bring big and bright additions to the organization, by working hard for her students and continuing to build the early college community.

“I would like to bring more community activities with our parents and our students and the early college, like a fall night, a spring night with games and activities for parents and students to get to know each other better,” Valdez said.

With big plans coming to the future, Valdez finds early college to be very encouraging to not only the newcomers but to the upcoming graduating class.

Wanting to bring a higher percentage of students to achieve their associates, in which the team excelled in last year, with the first early college graduating class in school history. 

“We set the bar pretty high, as far as getting your associates’ degree, that’s the standard. We want to continue to build that, we had 77 graduates this past year,” Valdez said.

With Valdez doing so much for the community already, she expressed her excitement and readiness for the change and new challenges. 

In addition to that, Valdez finds this position to be different compared to other jobs.

“I’ve done dual credit before, and I’ve done advanced placement courses before, so it was just different having your own community of students,” Valdez said.

Valdez’s welcoming nature and hardworking skills has resulted in many students to find her to be very admirable. 

“I don’t have many personal experiences myself with her, but from the few small encounters, she’s very kind and very on top of things, she’s always up-to-date on everything,” junior Sophie Vega said. “I do think she is right for the job. I think she can supply us with lots of new insights on our program and provide a new perspective.”

Junior Vanessa Orozco, who was recently voted as class president of 2025, feels that communication and parent involvement has improved since Valdez has taken over. 

“She’s very organized and well spoken, she’s also very involved in holding meetings, not just with us, but our parents,” Orozco said. “She’s right for the role because she’s definitely hard working and ensures a lot of our success.”

Valdez has already done amazing things for the early college and all staff and students cannot wait to see what she does for the future of the program.