New Tech High On Schedule

Building Remodeling, Teacher Training Under Way

— Recruitment is ending and plans are progressing for Rogers New Technology High School, a charter school option within the Rogers School District.

At A Glance

Around The State

There are 10 New Tech Network-affiliated schools in Arkansas; eight opened last year. The schools are:

• Arkadelphia High School

• Cross County High School in Cherry Valley

• Dumas New Tech High School

• El Dorado High School

• Highland High School in Hardy

• Hope Academy of Science and Technology

• Lincoln High School New Tech

• Marked Tree High School

• Riverview High School in Searcy

• Van Buren High School

Source: www.newtechnetwork.org/newtech_schools

What Is It?

Project-Based Learning

New Tech Network-affiliated schools are built on the idea of using projects in learning. Projects are required to relate to real-world situations and to develop new skills, according to a New Tech rubric. Getting students to do their own research, evaluate their own skills and collect feedback from peers and teachers on their work are also goals within the program.

Source: www.newtechnetwork.org

The technology school promises learning based in projects, a laptop for each student and a corporate-style school atmosphere where students are responsible for their work. By midafternoon Friday, 271 students had turned in applications.

A commitment meeting, held later in the spring, will ask students to sign with the school for a year and provide more information for parents, said Lance Arbuckle, school director.

Noah Solomon, an eighth-grade student at Oakdale Middle School, said he is excited by the idea of having his own laptop to work on instead of shuffling from station to station.

“There’s not enough computers,” Noah said of other schools.

His mom, Larissa Solomon, said she’s excited to hear Noah enthusiastic about school. Learning is more than learning to read, write, memorize and take a test, she said.

“I’ve been doing it since kindergarten, and it’s a little repetitive,” Noah chimed in.

Schools have been perfecting 19th century learning for 150 years, Arbuckle said at a recruitment meeting Thursday. Students at New Technology High will start with a question and learn to work with others to solve problems. Those are 21st century skills, Arbuckle said.

A series of training meetings are next as district officials prepare to open the school this fall. Arbuckle has selected six teachers and held their first meeting in January. He will attend leadership training for New Tech, then has a job shadow in the next few weeks. Not all the staff members have been hired for the school. A grant application to the state from the school district asks for funding for 18 staff members for an April training visit to a Texas New Tech campus.

“It’s a work tour,” said Kelley McKaig, school development coach with New Tech Network, the national nonprofit organization that will shepherd Rogers through opening the new school.

New Tech-affiliated schools are not just copy and paste schools, so training and planning start in earnest after the teachers have that first visit, McKaig said.

Arbuckle said he anticipates the training will be much like the project-learning emphasized for students. A summer workshop will give teachers the chance to play students in a weeklong class simulation and to find out firsthand the pitfalls and successes involved in learning on a team.

“As adults we forget what it’s like to be a student,” McKaig said.

Remodeling on the northern end of The Annex, 2922 S. First St., will create a corporate-style office space for the technology school, said Michelle McClaflin, project manager with Hight-Jackson Associates, the architecture firm handling the project.

English and social studies classes will be taught together, and a pair of double-sized classrooms will be created to house them. Classrooms will have glass windows and carpeted floors. The science lab will get new equipment. White boards will come down and walls will be painted to make an entire wall for students to write on. A cyber cafe will be the central workspace and mimics a coffee shop look, McClaflin said.

“We’re getting away from that school theme of trying to keep an accent wall,” she said.

The cost of remodeling has not been determined.

Fire doors will separate the technology school from the professional development center and the alternative school already housed in The Annex.

The Rogers School Board signed off Tuesday on a $483,000 charter school planning and implementation grant application. The state money will help pay for training and equipment — iPads for staff and students for a mobile application development class, an eBook library portal identical to those at the other high schools, calculators, signage, equipment to print identification cards, laptops for instructors and some funds toward student computers.

District officials are still determining which students will make up New Tech’s first class.

A lottery entry is still a possibility even if the school has fewer than 300 applicants, said Mark Sparks, deputy superintendent. Applications are still welcome, but early applications take priority in case of a waiting list.

“We’ll continue to take applications because we want to know who is interested,” Sparks said.

Last week’s deadline gave administrators an idea about the number of students in each grade level, those students must still be divided into classes so administrators know how many teachers are needed at the school. New Technology High will open with freshmen and sophomores, adding a class each year. Most of the applicants so far will enter as freshmen.

Some students are thinking ahead. Justus Houchins, seventh-grade student at the Benton County School of the Arts, said he is considering the school his freshman year. The technology school will require students to take at least one class that gives them college credit and will partner students with local businesses. That interests him, Justus said.

“This gives you what most schools don’t give you,” Justus said. “Real work experience and internships.”

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