New Technology High School Taking Shape

ROGERS — It won’t be a typical first week of school when Rogers’ New Technology High School opens its doors Aug. 19.

“We’ll run a whole different schedule for week one,” said Lance Arbuckle, director of the new school and current assistant principal at Rogers High School.

There will be team-building activities as students get to know each other and brainstorming sessions where students develop school norms. Arbuckle will have the final say, but school expectations will be set by students, for students, he said. Midweek each student will be issued a laptop that will serve as textbook, schedule book, project creator and personal computer lab.

The learning process at the school will be different than anything students have experienced before, Arbuckle said.

Even the language is different. Students are described as learners. Teachers are called facilitators. Project steps are described as “knows,” “need to knows” and “next steps.”

The district-run charter school will be affiliated with the New Tech Network, a nonprofit organization emphasizing project-based learning in more than 120 schools nationwide. The 13 educators assigned to the school visited Texas last week for firsthand research on what makes a project-based school work.

The first week of school is being treated as the first project for students and teachers.

“Their first project is to create the culture of our school,” said Casey Bazyk, who will teach English at the school.

Projects are going to be a natural fit for Christine Faubel because there are many Spanish-speakers in Northwest Arkansas, said the Spanish teacher. For example, Faubel’s students could create a usable public service announcement aimed at the community as opposed to developing a fake newsletter that no one would see.

Much of what will happen this fall at the school is still being developed. The teaching team is meeting weekly. Students will be encouraged to tackle real problems for their projects, and Arbuckle is building a list of community partners who could sit in on student presentations and offer feedback. History and English classes will be team taught as a combined class. One Advanced Placement class, AP Biology, will be offered for sophomores in the school’s first year, with offerings expanded as the school grows. Partnerships for concurrent college credit, emphasized student’s junior year, are still being developed.

The building itself is still under construction.

Demolition inside the New Technology wing of the Annex building on South First Street is nearly complete, said David Cauldwell, district business manager. The remodel should be finished by July 15.

Three classrooms in the former middle school were used to create a commons area, three other classrooms were combined into larger classrooms. The science lab had to be remodeled. The room was expanded and stations will be reconfigured into a pod design, but that means contractors will have to rough in plumbing, pour floors and put in new walls.

Classrooms with corridor walls will have large glass windows to the hallway.

“That’s one of the common themes of New Tech,” Cauldwell said.

A second-year addition will create a new entry for the school, but for it’s first year a temporary entrance will be on the northeast corner of the building.

The school will have additional power outlets for charging 300 laptops and there will be additional wireless Internet capabilities at the school, said Chris Carter, chief information officer.

Apple MacBook Pros issued to each student will be equipped with Adobe Creative Suite. Because that equipment meets state requirements, there will be no separate computer lab, Carter said. It will be the first time in Rogers students are assigned a computer and the first time for a large Macintosh roll out.

“Our students experience one computer per child, but not all day long,” Carter said.

Administrators are deliberating computer use policies for the laptops. Teachers are developing a computer ethics lesson to go with the computer roll out.

Once construction is finished, Arbuckle said he hopes to have a series of open house events for parents, students and the community. The school has room for 60 more students, Arbuckle said. Teachers will begin meeting with students who have signed up for New Tech classes, in lieu of school tours.

Teachers said they are ready to introduce students to a new way to learn.

“All too often in regular school, we teach kids to memorize. In New Tech, we’re going to teach kids to think,” said Danny Burdes, history teacher.