Setting.
Who are we?
High Tech High North County is a public charter school located in San Marcos, CA and opened in the Fall of 2007 with their first class graduating in 2011. On the same campus, we have High Tech Middle North County which serves grades 6-8 and in the Fall of 2013 we opened High Tech Elementary North County which is currently hosting Kindergarden through 2nd grade. The 2014-2015 school year will include the full K-5 for our elementary school. For the 2012-2013 school year, there were 530 students enrolled in grades 9-12 at HTHNC. Out of the student body, 57% were boys and 43% were girls. 59% labeled themselves as Caucasian, 3% as African-American, 24% as Hispanic, 1% as American-Indian, 1% as Pacific-Islander and 13% as Asian. Additionally, 3% of the students were considered English Language Learners and 22% were enrolled in the Free-Reduced Lunch program. 18% of the students were a part of the Special Education department. Overall, having been a part of this community for four years, I can say that HTHNC consists of a diverse student body with multiple talents, skills and aspirations.
Additionally, HTH has several sister schools in Point Loma, San Diego as well as Chula Vista, San Diego. All HTH schools boast the same four design principles which are personalization, adult world connection, common intellectual mission and teacher as designer. Personalization refers to the way in which we approach individualized learning for each student; adult world connection describes how our curriculum goes beyond the walls of the classroom and therefore become more meaningful to students; common intellectual mission describes our diverse and yet inclusive classrooms in which every student has the same goal of obtaining the complex skills that allow our youth to be successful in the modern world; and finally teacher as designer displays the expectation of teacher leaders at all of our schools – teachers work in teams, they lead meetings and make important decisions regarding student success. These four principles also become the foundation for our curriculum which is utilizing project-based learning to help prepare students for college and beyond. The way in which our organization approaches adult learning is very similar to the way in which we foster learning amongst our students -- our professional development workshops tend to be teacher-driven and teacher-led as much as possible and the topics of these meetings always revolve around how teachers could be further supported. Because the demographics and experiences of our staff is so different, the various needs of our teachers drive the purpose of our meetings. We have staff members that are brand new to teaching, experienced teachers that are new to PBL and experienced PBL teachers that are new to HTH. We also have a good mix of genders and ethnicities with 14 staff members being male and 18 female staff members. Two of staff members consider themselves African-American, four Asian-American teachers and four staff members who have a Hispanic background. Much like the curriculum for students, the content of our workshops revolve around the needs of the staff. Surveys are often implemented to get an idea of what would be most helpful to teachers.
High Tech High North County is a public charter school located in San Marcos, CA and opened in the Fall of 2007 with their first class graduating in 2011. On the same campus, we have High Tech Middle North County which serves grades 6-8 and in the Fall of 2013 we opened High Tech Elementary North County which is currently hosting Kindergarden through 2nd grade. The 2014-2015 school year will include the full K-5 for our elementary school. For the 2012-2013 school year, there were 530 students enrolled in grades 9-12 at HTHNC. Out of the student body, 57% were boys and 43% were girls. 59% labeled themselves as Caucasian, 3% as African-American, 24% as Hispanic, 1% as American-Indian, 1% as Pacific-Islander and 13% as Asian. Additionally, 3% of the students were considered English Language Learners and 22% were enrolled in the Free-Reduced Lunch program. 18% of the students were a part of the Special Education department. Overall, having been a part of this community for four years, I can say that HTHNC consists of a diverse student body with multiple talents, skills and aspirations.
Additionally, HTH has several sister schools in Point Loma, San Diego as well as Chula Vista, San Diego. All HTH schools boast the same four design principles which are personalization, adult world connection, common intellectual mission and teacher as designer. Personalization refers to the way in which we approach individualized learning for each student; adult world connection describes how our curriculum goes beyond the walls of the classroom and therefore become more meaningful to students; common intellectual mission describes our diverse and yet inclusive classrooms in which every student has the same goal of obtaining the complex skills that allow our youth to be successful in the modern world; and finally teacher as designer displays the expectation of teacher leaders at all of our schools – teachers work in teams, they lead meetings and make important decisions regarding student success. These four principles also become the foundation for our curriculum which is utilizing project-based learning to help prepare students for college and beyond. The way in which our organization approaches adult learning is very similar to the way in which we foster learning amongst our students -- our professional development workshops tend to be teacher-driven and teacher-led as much as possible and the topics of these meetings always revolve around how teachers could be further supported. Because the demographics and experiences of our staff is so different, the various needs of our teachers drive the purpose of our meetings. We have staff members that are brand new to teaching, experienced teachers that are new to PBL and experienced PBL teachers that are new to HTH. We also have a good mix of genders and ethnicities with 14 staff members being male and 18 female staff members. Two of staff members consider themselves African-American, four Asian-American teachers and four staff members who have a Hispanic background. Much like the curriculum for students, the content of our workshops revolve around the needs of the staff. Surveys are often implemented to get an idea of what would be most helpful to teachers.