Senator Luis Sepulveda (left), Ariella Thompson (right)

Ariella Thompson, Bard High School Early College (BHSEC) Bronx ’27, coauthored an opinion piece with Luis R. Sepulveda, the New York State Senator for the Bronx’s 32nd district, for New York Daily News.

The op-ed highlights how success at Bard is not just defined by grades, but by a deepened intellectual curiosity and confidence in students. Programs like BHSEC Bronx achieve this outcome by deliberately rethinking how we educate students and prepare them in practice, not just in theory, for all that follows a high school degree.

“This style of learning teaches us intellectual confidence,” Ariella shares. “Seminar discussions require students to speak thoughtfully, listen carefully, and understand that learning is not just about following instructions, but also about developing our own ideas. Instead of waiting until adulthood to be treated as serious thinkers, we begin developing that identity while still in high school.”

Bard has a 40-year history in early college education, and pioneered the movement with the opening of Simon’s rock in 1979, and the opening of the first BHSEC school in 2001. The first decade of the Bard Early College was focused on launching and establishing one of the country’s first public early college high schools, expanding access to higher education, with the flagship campuses in New York City. Senator Sepulveda elaborates that “programs such as BHSEC Bronx exist because educators, institutions, and public leaders make a deliberate decision to invest in students and expand access to opportunities that have historically been out of reach for many young people.”