[[{| align=right border="1" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="4" style="margin: 1em 1em 1em 0; background: #f9f9f9; border: 1px #aaa solid; border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 95%; width: 20em;" |+ Technology High School |- | bgcolor="white" colspan="3" style="text-align: center;" | File:Techhighlogo1.jpg |- | Principal/Headmaster || colspan="2" | Dr. Kay Dorner |- | School type || colspan="2" | Public (Classified as an Alternative School) |- | Founded || colspan="2" | 1999 |- | Location || colspan="2" | Rohnert Park, California |- | Enrollment || colspan="2" | 240 Students |- | Faculty || colspan="2" | 10 |- | Campus surroundings || colspan="2" | Suburban |- | Sports teams || colspan="2" | None (Robotics team 675) |- | Mascot || colspan="2" | Titans |- | School colors || colspan="2" | Blue and White |- |}
Technology High School was established as a project to provide more opportunities for the study of science, math and technology, initiated in 1995 by a combination of the Cotati-Rohnert Park Unified School District, Sonoma State University, Hewlett Packard and the Autodesk foundation. The school opened its doors in 1999.
History
Technology High School As a Program
Initially the school was a program of Rancho Cotate High School. The students involved split their time between the two schools. Technology High School's program included Integrated Science, Engineering and Math curriculum as required courses and the students took the remainder of their classes from Rancho Cotate High School. This environment created a school focused heavily on the math and sciences with the larger high school environment providing everything else expected from a traditional high school.
Technology High School As a School
In 2002, Tech High became a separate and independent school, starting with the class of 2006. The former "program students" continued to be part-time students and split their time, while all new students came in as full-time. This called for new, undeveloped humanities, physical education, foreign language, and elective programs to be created and implemented. These have since become more developed, but are currently lagging behind the Science and Engineering curriculum.
Relations With The School District
Relations with the school district became strained when during the planning of the 2004-2005 district budget a proposal was put forth to relocate Technology High School. This caused a strong backlash of support from the community around Technology High School. Students, parents and staff felt that this would severly compromise the integrity of the program. Students and parents pulled together in an attempt to halt this measure. In a special session in January 2004 the school board voted 5-0 to keep the school in its facilities on the Sonoma State University campus.
Relations with the school district have improved considerably, partly due to Technology High School being announced as a Distinguished School in April of 2005 as part of California's Distinguished School Program. Relations have also been improved due Technology High School's high testing scores. The district has now publically stated that they feel that the proposal to relocate Technology High School was a mistake.
Recent history
In 2005, Technology High School began its first year of an extended waiting list. A random selection process was used to follow California's fair and equitable education guidelines. The 2005-2006 school year will also be the first year that Technology High School will house 4 years of full-time students. Its first full time class will graduate in June of 2006.
Campus
Location
Techology High School is housed in the Ruben Salazar Building on the Sonoma State University campus in Rohnert Park, California. The Ruben Salazar Building is near the center of campus right off the quad placing students at an advantageous ___location to quickly reach any part of campus. This ___location also offers access to Rancho Cotate High School which allows Technology High School students to participate in its dances and athletic teams.
Use of University Facilities
Technology High School uses the university library as well as various other facilities. Technology High School are also frequent patrons of the University's dining facilities and bookstores as Technology High School does not offer dining facilities of its own. Technology High School students can also take classes at Sonoma State University in addition to their curriculum at Technology High School. The on-campus nature of Technology High School is theoretically designed to increase the students comfort in university environments.
Students
Gender Breakdown
(Approximate numbers for the 2005-2006 school year)
| 9th Grade | 67% Male | 33% Female |
| 10th Grade | 80% Male | 20% Female |
| 11th Grade | 85% Male | 15% Female |
| 12th Grade | 90% Male | 10% Female |
Ethnicity Breakdown:
| 75% | White |
| 7% | Asian |
| 4% | African American |
| 2% | Pacific Islander |
| 1% | Native American |
| 2% | Other Classification/Declined to State |
Other data
There are 1.3 students per computer, compared to the California state-wide average of 5 students per computer. [1]. Many students go to on to a higher educational institution while less than 20% go directly into the workforce.
Faculty
There is an average of 27 students per teacher. Full credentials are possessed by 83% of teachers, while the remaining teachers have emergency credentials or waivers. [2] Faculty retention has been an issue over the School's history. Retention rates were below 50% the first several years of operation but current retention rates hover around 75%.
Due to the small-school environment that Technology High School maintains there are at most 3 teachers in one department. This encourages teachers to work together on cross-curricular projects. Staff meetings happen at least once a week where the entire staff of the school gathers together to discuss any outstanding school wide issues. Another purpose of these meetings is to attempt to ensure consistency through the entire school.
Curriculum
Technology High School's curriculum is designed to be project-based as well as cross-curricular. Teachers work closely together to create projects that span more than one curricular area. Teachers also try to time the curriculum so that students can take advantage of what they learn in one class in another. The curriculum is also designed and graded based on the Schoolwide Learning Outcomes.
Clubs
Official Clubs
Robotics Club
The Robotics Club is almost as old as the school itself. It originated in 2000 as a project in one of the engineering classes, the following year it was offered to all students as a club. The team competes in the FIRST Robotics Competition where they are given 6 weeks each year to design, build, program, test and ship a robot. Since becoming a club in 2001 the team has prided itself on being entirely student run. This means that students are responsible for the raising the $6,000 each year for the entry fee and increasing amounts for travel, manufacuring and operational expenses.
Naturally, this has also resulted in dilemmas of its own. The team has strugged to maintain consistency in its internal governance and affairs with frequent disputes arising. The team currently is governed by a set of bylaws that were adopted on September 18th, 2003. These bylaws set forth an administrative body called the Executive Council (More commonly just called the EC) which tries to oversee operations of the club and resolve disputes.
The actual work of the club is accomplished by a few working-groups. The working-groups are currently Fundraising/Public Relations, Manufacturing, Programming and Website/Animation. Each of these groups work fairly independent of one another and deal with their subject matter. Groups frequently have an appointed leader, but sometimes the group will see to its own affairs without need for a leader. Working-groups can and do hold meetings independently of the general meetings each week. Each individual members of robotics are required to maintain active membership in at least one working-group.
Student Council
Technology High School's Associated Student Body was started late in 2003 after Technology High School held its first elections and instituted the first student government in the school's history. ASB is responsible for overseeing the clubs in the school as well as overseeing each club's fiscal situation and ensuring that operation in this area proceeds smoothly. It adopted its bylaws quickly after the council's inception and currently allows members to not only be elected, but voted in as "General Members".
The Technology High School ASB set ambitious goals in its first year. The council wanted to start a business that would generate revenue for the school and jobs for students. Unfortunately due to the scope of the project, such plans were later shelved. The council continues to strive to reach outside ASB's traditional role and do more to involve itself in pressing problems and issues of the students.
Network Security Club
The Network Security Club was established in March of 2003 by DJ Capelis. It formally was adopted as a club by ASB at the same time ASB grandfathered in the Robotics Club. The club was founded to educate students about Network Security. Though it only met two days a week the club ran like a class much of the time even occasionally requesting homework and giving exams to those who participated. During the 2004-2005 school year the club implemented a student liability waiver at the request of the school.
The Network Security Club provides opportunities for students to not only learn about security, but through the use of livecds actually do this learning in a hands on fashion. The club's curriculum includes wargames, network simulations and programming. The curriculum also consists of a lot of board work and lecture. The subject is taught both from a practical and theoretical perspective.
Chess Club
The Chess Club was established late in the 2002-2003 school year by Nicholas Wan and revived again in the during the next year under different leadership. The club offers a weekly hangout for chess enthusiasts during lunch. Tournaments are also offered from time to time.
Yearbook Club
The Yearbook Club was established in September 2004 to create Technology High School's first yearbook. Working with a dedicated advisor, the yearbook club managed to achieve their objective. The club continues to work on Technology High School's yearbooks.
Mechanics Club (Disbanded)
During the 2004-2005 school year, a mechanics club where students could learn more about mechanics and work on various machinery was created. This club eventually disbanded due to lack of involvement. It may or may not return in future years.
Ping-Pong Club
The ping-pong club is one of Technology High School's more unique clubs. Similar to the chess club in many ways the ping-pong club seeks to provide students with an activity. The ping-pong club has managed to procure two ping-pong tables and rolls them out each week during lunch.
Battlefield Club (Suspended Until Further Notice)
In a movement to increase student entertainment at school, the Battlefield Club became a movement to push for the school to allow games on the school computers. The club intended to use the games to have events after school where students could play Battlefield 1942 as part of the club. The proposal to install games on the school computers eventually was quashed by the district even though the school administration kept a neutral stance on the issue. This left the club with little it could actually do and it was promptly suspended until further notice.
Burrito Club
Description to come.
Unofficial Clubs
PSP Club
The club started from a casual gathering of [PSP] owners that would be together at lunch to discuss and play PSP games. The club was un-official for the entirity of it's life of about one month.
SOS Brigade
A club started near the end of the 2005-2006 school year, the SOS Brigade is based on a club of the same name from the hit anime The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. The club is yet to be approved by ASB so the club remains un-official.
External links
IRC Channels
- #thnsc on irc.freenode.net - Technology High School's Network Security Club's Official IRC Channel
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