1 in 4 high school seniors at this Boone County school have associate degrees

Hajar Elayyadi is 15-year-old high school student with an associate degree.

She's on track to graduate in two years with her bachelor's in biology.

After that? She plans to spend a year abroad getting her master's in public health and then go to medical school − starting in a residency program by the time she's 23 to work in invasive cardiology.

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"I really do have to give credit to my brother and his friends," Hajar said. Her brother, Bilal Elayyadi, earned two associate degrees − one in art and one in science − in high school. "That really invigorated me and sparked that kind of hope that I could do the same thing, or kind of replicate their success in my own way."

The Elayyadi siblings are two of Ignite Institute's 1,000 students, many of whom will earn associate degrees by the time they graduate from high school. Bilal Elayyadi is part of Ignite's inaugural class, graduating this spring. A total of 289 seniors are graduating, 79 of them with associate degrees in hand, too.

The school opened in Erlanger in 2019 with just six traditional classrooms. Ignite's 180,000-square-foot campus features mock hospital rooms, robotics labs, a wood shop, video and audio production rooms, art studios and other makerspaces.

Students enrolled in the Boone County School District and other nearby school districts can opt to attend Ignite, which offers mostly dual credit classes that satisfy both high school and college graduation requirements. The school can do this because its high school teachers are certified to teach dual credit courses; it offers some online college classes through its partners at Gateway Community & Technical College, Thomas More University, Eastern Kentucky University and Northern Kentucky University and it has professors from those universities come to Ignite for in-person classes. Students pick from one of six tracks: biomedical and allied health, computer science, design, education, engineering and logistics.

"Ignite's integration with Gateway is really nice. Because I know that you can still take dual credit courses at different high schools, but here they make it a point to make the system work," Tomas Jaramillo, 18, said.

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Tomas is gradating alongside Bilal this year with his associate's in science. He said it was intimidating as an eighth grader, deciding to come to Ignite for the dual credits. But knowing of his dad's hardships before him, and with his mother's encouragement, he pushed through.

"My dad was born in Mexico," Tomas said. "Hearing his stories of struggle with how his opportunities weren't really there in terms of education, and how hard he's had to work up until this point."

Tomas said he realized that even if he doesn't end up pursuing a career in STEM, getting the chance to take college classes for free in high school was an opportunity he'd regret not taking.

"Now that I'm finished out with a two-year degree, if I don't want to go to school full time, I still have something that says, hey, I dedicated myself for two years. I put the work in. I know how to start something and I know how to finish it," he said.

The dual credit option is appealing to kids like Elaine Chan, 17, a self-proclaimed "horrible test taker." Taking Advanced Placement classes, the more well-known route of obtaining college credits while in high school, was out of the question for her.

She initially came to Ignite on the design track, but her plans changed. She's interested in business now, and in the fall she's starting school at Northern Kentucky University to study management.

"Since I am two years ahead," she said, "I'm going to add another major or two, possibly."

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Hajar said she's the first student at Ignite to complete her associate degree by the end of her sophomore year. It helped that she took several high school courses as a middle schooler, but she also thinks the encouragement − and lighthearted competition − with her brother and their friends keep her motivated.

"I think she's smarter than me, talent-wise," Bilal said of his little sister. "Inherently, she's smarter. My problem is when she starts rubbing it in."

Hajar laughed, but then conceded: "He's 100 times more of a hard worker than I am."

Their principal, Jerry Gels, said he's noticed the sibling rivalry, too. He thinks it's great.

"If you want to see humans make it to all the planets, just have Bilal here make it to Mars first. Then she'll be competitive and have to get to all the other ones," he said. "If we want to solve cancer, have him cure one cancer then she'll cure all the other ones."

Bilal isn't sure he wants to go into cancer research yet, but he is heading into the medical field. He accepted close to a full scholarship to the University of Louisville with guaranteed entrance to the university's medical school.

"I'm trying to, in college, become an EMT before medical school. Just so I have a nice, stable job beforehand," he said. "And these dual credits are going to help cut a lot of the work in half, pretty much."

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Boone County high school graduates 79 seniors with associate degrees