I heard there are college courses at High Tech High schools. What courses are there?
Due to budget cuts at the state level, we are no longer able to offer community college courses on the HTH village. However, students may still take community college courses at the community college in the mornings, evenings, or weekends.
I’d prefer to take college chemistry rather than my 10th grade chemistry course. Can I?
Because we believe in the value of teaching teams and project based learning, we have been very clear that students can do college courses in addition to our program but not in replacement of our program.
I already took physics in middle school, so I don’t want to take HTH math/physics in 9th grade.
While courses taken before attending a HTH school may indeed be valuable, we believe courses taken at other schools are not the equivalent of the HTH experience. All entering 9th grade students must do our 9th grade program.
I already took Algebra I, Geometry, and Algebra II in middle school, so I don’t want to take HTH math/physics in 9th grade or math/chemistry in 10th grade.
Because we believe in teaching teams, integrated courses, and project based learning, all entering 9th grade students must do our 9th grade program. All 10th grade students must do our 10th grade program.
Can I take math with a teacher on one team and science with a teacher on another team, and then Humanities with a teacher on another team?
Students must take all their classes with the same team. We do not allow students to have one foot on one team and the other foot on the other team, as this disrupts both teams.
How do HTH schools handle honors courses?
At High Tech High, we aim to personalize our offerings to individual students. For two students in the same physics class, one might be building a hovercraft while another is building a sailboat. Our teachers work to challenge and support each student to aim for their personal best. We believe this is a better way to acknowledge differences between students rather than offering “honors” vs. “regular courses.” Nonetheless, we recognize that one reason that students take honors courses is the weighted GPA that comes with this course, which helps during college admissions. Therefore, we allow students to take courses for honors credit for which UC will grant weighted GPA’s, namely junior and senior core classes.
Do HTH schools offer AP courses?
The problem with AP courses is that in order to pass the AP test, students must be rushed through a prescribed, exhaustive, fact-based curriculum that does not lead to an insightful understanding of the big ideas in the discipline. Additionally, many schools tailor their program to prepare students for the AP course, meaning that the entire 9-12 curriculum is set up to prepare students for a poorly designed course during the senior year. For these reasons, AP courses will never be the centerpiece of the HTH curriculum. We choose to emphasize deep project-based work over superficial “content coverage.”