In December 2016, TVHS was named a national demonstration site in the New Tech Network (previously known as the New Technology Foundation). The New Tech Network includes more than 130 schools, and is a leading school development organization that seeks to replicate the success of New Tech High School in Napa, California, which opened in 1996 and is regarded as one of the most innovative and successful high schools in the United States today.
New Tech is based in Napa, Calif., and is a grantee of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to encourage innovative approaches to education in the United States. Tech Valley High School has access to the NTH Learning System to help shape the program and curriculum as well as New Tech’s existing data bank of curriculum and best teaching practices. Tech Valley High School is the New Tech Network’s first replication site in New York state and the Northeast. The school is developing an inventory of rigorous inter-disciplinary projects that reflect the NYS learning standards.
Partnership Between TVHS and the New Tech Network
The New Tech Network supports start-up and implementation of 21st century schools across the United States. In August 2006, the then New Tech Foundation announced that Tech Valley High School was the recipient of a $400,000 grant — the first school in New York State, and in the Northeast, to receive this funding from NTF, whose work is supported by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The partnership allows Tech Valley High School to tap into the collective experience and wisdom of a leading-edge network of schools, so it can use best practices — and help develop new best practices, right here in Tech Valley.
The $400,000 NTF grant was used to:
- Transfer all best practices and knowledge from the New Technology High School model to Tech Valley High School.
- Help Tech Valley High School design its facility and technology infrastructure.
- Train all Tech Valley High School teachers in project-based learning and coach and support them for the start-up year and three years of implementation.
- Train the Tech Valley High School principal and coach and support him for the start-up year and three years of implementation.
- Install the NTH Learning System at Tech Valley High School.
- Provide technology support to Tech Valley High School for the start-up year and three years of implementation.
- Host a professional learning community of principals and teachers from all New Tech High schools across the country, including Tech Valley High School.