DORCHESTER
College prep gets technical
Kids see advantages fall into their laptops
When headmaster Mary Skipper asked 55 high school juniors at TechBoston Academy this spring if any of them could afford college, not a single student raised a hand. The students listened intently as Skipper outlined strategies to help them earn scholarships.
The students are the class of 2006, who will end their junior year June 30 and move one step closer to being the pilot school's first graduating class.
''We've got some cool stuff lined up for you next year," Skipper, 37, tells her audience. ''We're going to have a partnership with a virtual high school, and you guys are going to have the chance to take some [Advanced Placement] classes that aren't even offered in Boston."
They gasp in excitement.
''Do you think if I'm a college admissions director I would like to see that you've already taken a college class?"
Heads nod, and the crowd buzzes with murmurs of yeah.
TechBoston Academy, which opened in September 2002, is a pilot school designed to integrate technology throughout a college preparatory curriculum. Founded in part by partners such as the Boston Foundation; General Dynamics; and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which gave the school a $400,000 grant, TechBoston provides each student with a laptop.
Students are selected by lottery, and there is no academic prerequisite, says Skipper.
''The goal of the lottery is that we could take any student across this city," she said.
A visit to any of the classrooms of TechBoston, situated within the Dorchester Education Complex, gives evidence that this is not a typical public school. In one room, sophomores Nadas Mann and Adreiana Ferrara, both 16, are giving a PowerPoint presentation on Charles Darwin and the Galapagos Islands.
Web development and digital art are freshman requirements, and community service and internships at local companies are requirements for graduation.
Sophomore Ashlen Price, 16, is eager to talk about the website she made about FDR's New Deal.
''The html skills and the blogs, these skills help us in our own life," she says.
Math teacher Mike Reilly, who once worked for the Virginia-based dotcom Accenture, says that while these youths are learning new technology, they are still studying the basics of a high school curriculum.
''Technology, if you infuse it properly and leave it available to them, it will inspire more learning," he says. ''There are a lot of traditional high school things here; we just do traditional things in a nontraditional manner."
Also nontraditional is the amount of time the students spend at school. With each class period lasting 75 minutes, the students are there from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. every weekday through the end of June, at which point most of them begin the internships they have secured earlier in the year. Students who elect to play sports are dismissed at 3 p.m. and play on the teams with other students in the complex. But Skipper says most of the students are at the school until 4:30 for academics.
''We see the summer as a bridge," says Skipper. ''Our hours are very different, so it's like a business day in many ways and the summers are the same way. You don't stop learning because June 30 comes. You're learning all year long."
Junior Esteban Bonilla, 17, is using an IT support internship with Verizon as his summer bridge.
"I'm feeling comfortable right about now for college," he says about the way a college admissions office will view his experience. "I'm expecting it to be a real good summer."
Sophomore Joe Larkin, 15, says comfort is a key to his school experience.
''When I was in eighth grade, teachers would tell you what to do, and if we were going to get out of our seats we would have to raise our hands," says Larkin.
''Here it's more loose, you feel more comfortable, and you're not really stressed out about your work."
''Yeah," says Price, ''when I was in eighth grade it was like homework was coming down on me like a big mountain, but now when I go home I only have a few things to do because I realize that I had the time in school to finish my work and I had the time in school to get help, so I only have to do the easy stuff at home."
Larkin talks excitedly about a program called Discourse, through which ''if you get stuck on a problem they can send you a little chat box to give you information to help you."
Price is quick to point out that they don't do everything on their laptops, though.
''We wouldn't be lost without computers," she says. ''Almost everything that we do is doable by hand."