Updated 09/12/2007 03:41 PM
Tech Valley High School celebrates opening
CAPITAL REGION -- Local, state and education leaders celebrated the opening of Tech Valley High Wednesday -- not only for what it will do for its students, but what they hope it will do for the Capital Region.
"You need young people who have an interest in math and sciences and physics that can help us stay competitive. That's what this is all about," said Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno.
Forty freshmen began class at Tech Valley High last Thursday, in a wing of the MapInfo building in Rensselaer's Technology Park.
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Students were chosen by a lottery system and were recruited based on their level of interest rather than ability.
School administrators hope this school will be the beginning of a teaching trend in Upstate New York. They said the methods being used on Tech Valley students are innovative and will hopefully be passed on to other public institutions.
"We want to teach students in the same manners in which they're going to work. So the same tools the industry uses, the colleges use, the university uses, those are the same tools we want to use with our students," said Tech Valley High Principal Dan Liebert.
Students use computers to do class work throughout the school day, work in teams and with business professionals, all of which are tools to make the transition into the collegiate and working world, seamless.
"I think that we'll have a better idea of what's coming toward us. Instead of when we get to college and we figure out what we want to be, we won't know what we're doing," said freshman Danielle Earing.
With the University at Albany's School of Nanotechnology and major businesses like GE and IBM, students already see the potential of their future careers in the Capital Region.
"They have a lot of technology, technology places where you could work, and probably have a lot of fun doing what you want. So yeah, I'd plan on coming back," said freshman Bruno Pinheirl.
Tech Valley High will eventually move into a larger facility to accommodate grades 9 through 12, and with the increase of students there is hope the brain drain in Upstate New York will decrease.