Twenty-five students enrolled in Dutchess BOCES’ Pathways in Technology Early College High School program are getting a head start through a two-week summer bridge program.
Five Poughkeepsie City School District students are joining the program this year, adding to the eight that were part of the program’s inaugural year in 2024-25. P-TECH, as the four-year program is known, allows students to earn their diploma and an applied associate degree in electrical technology. It’s open to incoming freshmen, only, and is one of several early-college opportunities offered to Poughkeepsie students.
 P-TECH is housed in Roy C. Ketcham High School in Wappingers Falls, where students earn most of their high school credits during their freshman and sophomore years. In their junior and senior years, they complete college courses at Dutchess Community College’s Fishkill Center of Excellence for Industry and Innovation.
“Then you’ll have the opportunity to continue and get a bachelor degree in electrical technology or another degree or to become an electrical technician,” DCC Electrical Engineering Technology Program Chair Daniel Barbuto said. “I have a long list of employers that are looking to hire.”
David King, who would otherwise be preparing for freshman year at Poughkeepsie High School, is taking part in the bridge program. This week, the students built Lego robots and used computers to control them.
King wanted to join P-TECH because he always had an interest in mechanics, thanks to his grandfather who works at Onsemi Conductors, one of the worksites students visited this week. He hopes to do it as a career.
“He was the one who really got me into this when I was younger,” King said. “It was my passion when I was younger and it still is.”
Teams of students built Lego robots and competed against each other to put their creations to the test. During the second week, students will on various skills and activities with DCC instructional staff and visited the college’s Mechatronics Lab in Fishkill.
In addition to P-Tech, the Smart Scholars Early College Performing Arts Academy, which is also open to incoming ninth grade students, held a bridge program this month, enabling students to earn their first college credit. Poughkeepsie is also offering for the first time this year an early college program through Bard, and it’s continuing to offer dual-enrollment classes in which students can earn college credit.