4/15/2011 5:25:00 AMCleveland's New Tech high schools draw interest from visiting educators
April 15, 2011, 5:25 AM
By Thomas Ott, The Plain Dealer
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Educators from Ohio, Pennsylvania and Kentucky visited Cleveland on Thursday to learn about two innovative high schools.
Nearly 100 superintendents, principals and teachers collected information and visited the district's New Tech academies, opened in August in sections of East Tech High School and the Garrett Morgan School of Science. Before the tours, the group met at the Crowne Plaza Cleveland City Centre hotel.
The schools, part of the system's academic "transformation plan," are the first Ohio outposts in the national New Tech Network, which grew from the founding of California's Napa New Technology High School in 1996.
By fall, the network is expected to span more than 80 schools in 14 states. That includes 10 percent of the high schools in Indiana, said Jon Reinhard, Midwest regional director for New Tech.
New Tech schools stress technology and learning through group projects, with teachers acting as coaches. The network provides training and guidance.
Cleveland schools Chief of Staff Christine Fowler-Mack told the educators that collaboration will prepare students for the 21st Century economy. "They cannot be passive learners," she said.
The Cleveland schools, which started with the ninth and 10th grades, are each designed to accommodate 400 students. Garrett Morgan's academy has 125 students and East Tech's has 89.
The principals warned the audience about start-up issues, including protests from outside students over the academies' wealth of technology and grumbling from within about later dismissal times.
"The first couple of weeks, you're going to run into a lot of pushback," said Ryan Durr, principal of New Tech at East Tech. "If you don't build that culture, your school is not going to be successful."
Six students fielded questions in a hotel ballroom. Jerald Goins, a ninth-grader in the academy at East Tech, was asked to compare his experience with those of students in traditional high schools.
"I would say it's easier," he said. "Maybe because it's more fun."