For the first time in 50 years, students will be walking the halls of the old Central Tech High School in Downtown Syracuse. It’s been reimagined with the help of millions of dollars from state and local governments into a regional STEAM school, focusing on science, technology, engineering, arts, and math.
Friends Emilina and Akuch sound like any other freshmen heading to a new high school.
“Making new friends and going to classes,” they said.
But there’s more to the school they’re starting as high school freshmen. It’s New York’s first regional STEAM high school, and is drawing its incoming class from schools across Onondaga County.
Akuch sees more opportunities for herself at STEAM.
“I thought we had better opportunities. More opportunities to do more of our programs that we wanted to do, and if we wanted to, pursue that in college too,” she said.
Emilina agreed.
“It's a lot of pathways and that's why I chose it because I feel like they're going to do one-on-one learning with people and better,” she said.
396 students applied to the school and 250 were accepted to join the freshman class. 60% are from the city of Syracuse, with the rest from surrounding districts. It offers students a chance to concentrate their studies in a variety of fields. Everything from robotics, construction and the arts. The most popular, according to school leaders, is animation and game design.
STEAM school Principal Dan Straub said the technical learning will be tightly integrated with regular school subjects.
“For example, we talk about animation and gaming,” said Straub. “We go down to Elite Gaming, which is one of our collaborators, or Syracuse eSports. And it's not only game design, but it's also media, it’s podcasting, it's short writing. English teachers are going to be involved in that. We're short writing, and script writing, you know, and we bring in math for the animation.”
Jody Manning, Executive Director of the STEAM High School, says the whole concept reimagines education.
“It’s about reimaging teaching and learning,” said Manning. “So we can prepare students for three on and off ramps. They go right into industry with a stack of credentials and that's pretty much brand new. They earn college credits, no charge, or they go right into the workforce. So, it is brand new, but we're very confident it is the future of public education.”
While students will be attending classes in the building, renovations aren’t yet complete. The first two floors of the building will be used until renovations are completed, which is expected early next year.
