High Tech High School

I m a parent of an 8th grader who attends HTMCV. This is a beautiful new building sitting in the outskirts of Chula overlooking big open spaces of the Otay Valley. All young, beautiful and enthusiastic teachers, safe environment for the kids but that s where the positive ends. I ended up pulling my 5th grader out of the HT elementary. He was having a hard time adjusting to the no text books, no homework and no real math mentality. He hated the school & didn t understand why at their age they had to sit around the carpet and have the teacher read & act out third grade reading level books to them. Not much really changes with the upper grades. HT Staff does not discuss school's academic performance; my questions to them have gone unanswered. Town hall meetings are about the beautiful school & how lucky we are to have our kids there rather than showing the accountability reports. Most parents do not question the school because they get caught up in the hype. The ones who are finding out the many faults of the HT schools system are the ones paying attention, questioning their kids and doing quite a bit of research. I ll be pulling out my 8th grader next year as well.
--Submitted by a parent

Do you hate your kid? If you answered YES to this question then you should send your kid straight to High Tech High! Why? Well if you really wanna send your kid a message about how much you hate them dump em at HTH. HTH employs a never-before-seen smoke and mirrors tactic that everyone will love! Parents think their kid is learning and preparing for college while the student believes that he or she is actually learning, it's quite genius! But wait there's more! If your kid can stand 4 years at HTH they'll be ready for one of the biggest letdowns of their lives, the realization that HTH has screwed them on all learning and most importantly, study skills! They will be stuck at JC's for years, not re-learning, but LEARNING the material from square one. Years behind and frustrated, you will finally be able to have the last laugh!! On a more serious note, as a former student of HTH I loved it until I hit college and the real world. I spent years in the JC system and had to completely learn how to study thanks to HTH's textbookless learning regime. In closing, I hope you can detect the satire in the above story, it's the only way I know how to spin my experience in a happy way.

In its favor, High Tech High provides a safe and clean environment. However, it is also an environment singularly lacking in imagination, which turns the possibilities of discovery in education into drudgery. The faculty piles on assignments without apparent regard for the long term or for the students' grasp of the material. If your child needs extra help, you can get it to the letter of the law if you press the administration, but don't expect generosity. There is no spirit of community among the parents. The sole function of the parent organization is to raise money. I went through an entire year without learning any parents' names, despite numerous attempts on my part to involve myself in the community.
--Submitted by a parent

I'm disturbed by so many of the reviews found in this forum, as they are misguided and, frankly, wrong. Someone entered erroneous stats about community college rates (and CC is great for some kids, by the way). Also, HTH has always been clear that this school is not for everyone. If you want your child lectured at and filled with facts that s/he puts on a test and then forgets, by all means send them to your local school. Thanks to HTH's energetic and passionate teachers and leadership!
--Submitted by a parent

High Tech High has been one of the best places for me to grow and be inspired. I have been a student as well as a tutor here and for the past 8 years I have always been greeted with kindness and people with a strong dedication for education.
--Submitted by a student

I have worked at HTH for 10 years, and most of the complaints are correct. However, we have gotten more organized, but we don t have a draconian set of rules. We use some textbooks, but more primary and secondary sources. In college the most important skill you need is to interact with your professors, and our students are great at that. Everyone has a hard time with the college paper chase, but if you can communicate openly with your professors it is golden. We only have Spanish and we don t have football. When a college sees the students took 4years of math, science, English and met the A-G requirements, (you can t graduate with out meeting them) they real like our students. I would take any advise about a school with a grain of salt, even mine. We actually teach the students this too, know the source.
--Submitted by a teacher

I believe this school did an excellent job of preparing my daughter for the UC system where she starts in a few days. Many parents have noted issues below with the emphasis on presentations over tests and other day to day organizational issues all of which can present a few problems. However there is no comparason with the other public school in Pt Loma, (with regards to academics) which my son attends. The test scores at PLHS are much lower, the classes are alot bigger, crime is a big problem. In all fairness though the gap does appear to be closing some based on the latest API scores and PLHS has a great sports program
--Submitted by a parent

I agree to disagree with the previous review. ALL DO NOT end up in fine colleges; unless you are not considering the 33% attending junior college. 57% accepted to public colleges and of that 57% only 14% accepted to the uc system and less than 10% accepted to private universities. The kids do learn excellent presentation skills; however I wonder how these kids transition to college with NO text book experience. If you check the Star Testing website, a parent will have a clear idea if their kids overall are learning math and science at HTH.
--Submitted by a parent

Where else would my child have worked with researchers in Africa to do DNA testing on bushmeat to help catch poachers, co authored a field guide on the San Diego Bay, designed and built an apparatus to enable a young man with CP to eat by himself, designed a computer game, interned for a non profit and designed their Website? Where else do students of every race, economic level and geographic area come together to learn and get along and ALL end up accepted to fine colleges? These polished presenters and enthusiastic learners are very impressive to colleges. (my son's friends are all off to Berkely, UCLA and other top schools this fall ). Yes it can be disorganized. Yes, we did get some tutoring to fill in math gaps in 11th grade. But the preparation for life and learning is second to none.
--Submitted by a parent

I am pulling my child out of this school because of the teacher and academic quality. Too many teachers w/no experience. Courses are blocked and integrated and my experience has been my child is taught very little in each subject. I am concerned my child will not be fully prepared for college because too much time is spent on projects and group work and little time is spent on learning a particular subject in-depth. The things I do like are that there is a great deal of writing done in the classes. They learn great computer skills which includes power point presentations often. It has a small good diverse student body and the kids seem to all get along. As much as I hate changing because my child enjoys the school very much, I feel it will be best for my child s academic success to move.
--Submitted by a parent