08/23/2026
🎓✨ WELCOME BACK TRI-COUNTY EARLY COLLEGE! ✨🎓
As we begin the 2026–2027 school year, Cherokee County Schools of Innovation is proud to welcome back the exceptional students, families, faculty, and staff of Tri-County Early College!
For more than two decades, TCEC has empowered students to pursue ambitious goals, embrace meaningful challenges, and build brilliant futures. As our school prepares to begin its 21st year, Principal Mr. Jason Forrister shares these words about the remarkable opportunities, accomplishments, and community that define Tri-County Early College:
“Tri-County Early College
Having just completed its 20th year, TCEC began as a good idea that continues to produce stellar outcomes for the students and families of Cherokee County. Twenty years ago, a group of Cherokee County educators and members of Tri-County Community College realized the dream of bringing a Cooperative Innovative High School to Cherokee County. By design, Cooperative Innovative High Schools are small schools, limited in size to no more than 400 students, so that early college students have unique, individualized high school experiences with significant successes.
Today, cost and affordability concern most everyone, and certainly, money factors into many students’ and families’ decisions concerning higher education. A quick, keyword search for “Cost of Attendance” on UNC System School websites results in cost projections showing that students without scholarships and financial aid will pay around $25,000 per year at state universities. That’s a $50,000 savings.
On average, each of TCEC’s graduating classes boasts 80% of graduates who have earned one two-year degree. In TCEC’s 20 years, 330 graduates have earned a two-year degree. The TCEC Class of 2026 amassed over $2.8 million in available scholarships, and over 81% earned at least one two-year degree.
Class of 2024 graduate Sebastian Clevez says, ‘The early college program that TCEC offers for getting an associate’s degree through the community college for free has been a game changer in my progress as a university student. Combined with saved time, money, and advantages of having early seniority status, I cannot exaggerate what TCEC’s program has done for me.’
TCEC also serves to prepare students who choose not to go to a four-year university. TCEC’s students also have access to certificate programs at Tri-County. Some students elect to complete the welding program, for example, instead of a two-year degree in college transfer.
Other students who complete their two-year degrees use those degrees to move directly into other opportunities at TCCC, including the nursing or medical sonography programs.
While cost savings and scholarships are important to many of TCEC’s graduates, other benefits of TCEC’s program propel TCEC’s students to success. Unlike most high school students in Cherokee County who take college classes online through College and Career Promise, starting when they enter 11th grade, TCEC students take most of their college classes in person and begin their college journey as first-semester 9th graders. Since 2023, only 27% of college courses for TCEC students occur online, and those courses are typically selected to accommodate students’ scheduling needs. Students see their teachers as advocates who support them and give them agency in learning.
TCEC graduate and business owner, Rylee Love offers this assessment of her experience with TCEC school culture.
‘TCEC made me who I am. I remember being told we would be treated like adults, and since having those responsibilities, it was expected to come with the necessary adult behavior - respect, kindness, and accountability. TCEC allowed me to become a confident leader.’
Additionally, TCEC’s emphasis on global-mindedness and its long-standing partnership with Herning Gymnasium, a high school for university-bound students in Herning, Denmark, enrich students, faculty, and community alike. For most of TCEC’s 20 years, students and teachers from Herning have visited Western North Carolina. During their week here, the Danes attend classes at TCEC, explore local and regional cultural sites, and stay in the homes of TCEC’s families and friends. The presentations the Danish students give about Danish culture help TCEC’s students broaden their perspectives on the world. In 2023, students and teachers from TCEC traveled to Herning for the first time since the partnership’s creation. Following a similar program there, the American students teach the Danish students about Appalachian culture, stay in Danish homes, and participate in classes at the school. Additionally, the travel groups visit other European destinations while abroad.
During the 2025-2026 school year, TCEC’s leadership team of teachers, the school counselor, and the principal organized the new Advanced Placement Academy that has met with tremendous excitement from students and families. TCEC students now have access to six Advanced Placement courses taught in-person by credentialed TCEC faculty to support their academic rigor and preparation for higher educational opportunities. Students will elect to take these classes in addition to the college courses required for their two-year degree.
As Tri-County Early College, a National Beta Club School of Distinction, prepares to welcome students to a new school year for the 21st time, the good idea that produced this school continues to deliver nuanced and challenging opportunities for students to find their paths toward brilliant futures.”
As we open the doors to another exciting year, we celebrate the relationships that make TCEC a community and the opportunities that help every student discover what is possible.
This year, we will CONNECT with one another, with our community, and with a world of new ideas. We will EMPOWER our students to lead, grow, achieve, and confidently pursue their own paths toward brilliant futures.
Welcome back Tri-County Early College! Here’s to an extraordinary 21st year! 🎉
CONNECT. EMPOWER. ACHIEVE.
