bto success story: METRO TECH HIGH SCHOOL

Metro Tech High School is proud of its students’ academic achievement, and rightfully so. The majority of its students (70 percent) meet or exceed the state average on the AIMS test. In addition, the school’s sophomores outscored the state average in math last year.

Not content to rest on its laurels, the school has established an even more ambitious goal: Prepare every student for college and career. According to Principal Kate McDonald, the school’s clear bottom line is to make sure students are proficient on college readiness standards, and not just proficient on AIMS. “There is a big difference between the two,” she said.

School Overview

Metro Tech, which is part of the Phoenix Unified High School District, offers a full academic program to its 1,420 students in grades nine through twelve. The school’s student population is more than 90 percent low-income and Latino, 12 percent special education, and 8 percent English language learners (ELL). Approximately 1,700 students from other district high schools come to Metro Tech to take one of its 20 career and technical education (CTE) programs as part of their school day.

The school joined the Beat the Odds School Partners Program at the beginning of the 2009-2010 academic year to help it meet its academic goals. Principals are taught how to incorporate into the operation of their schools six elements that research has shown to be associated with successful minority schools. They include a strong and steady principal, clear bottom line, ongoing assessment, collaboration, a program built on individual student needs, and a commitment to stay with successful instructional programs. 

Metro Tech is at an advantage in that for several years it has practiced BTO principles. “When we did the Beat the Odds survey of our staff,” commented Principal McDonald, “the feedback we received was ‘Collaboration is essential to what we do’ and ‘Using data in decision-making is key.’”

She cites the school’s commitment to the professional learning community (PLC) process as the chief reason for its academic success thus far, and its greatest opportunity to reach future goals. A PLC is a high-performing team united by a commitment to student achievement. Team activities include working and learning collaboratively, visiting and observing other teachers’ classrooms (peer mentoring), and participating in shared, data-driven decision making. Metro Tech is in its fifth year of integrating the professional learning community model within both administrator and teacher groups.

Clear Bottom Line: College and Career

Despite the students’ academic achievement, many of them do not continue their education after high school. “Our data show that less than half of our students attempt going to college,” Principal McDonald said. “Very few stick it out. Everything we do now is with that end in mind: preparing students for college and career.”

Some of the new and ongoing steps the school is taking include:

ASU Day: Every high school freshman spends a day at Arizona State University touring the campus, listening to professors, visiting a dorm and learning about different academic programs. “We hope they visualize themselves on a four-year campus,” Principal McDonald said. “We hope to plant that seed.”

ACT Exam: Beginning in the freshman year and continuing through the junior year, Metro Tech students will take the ACT exam, which assesses students’ career interests and aptitude, as well as college readiness. By having three consecutive years of ACT results, the school will be able to identify individual students’ skills and needs, see where there has been progress, and identify what still needs to be done to get the student “college and career ready.”

4 + 4 Plan: Metro Tech’s counselors prepare plans for each student that include four years of high school and four years of college. The plans are reviewed with the students and their parents. Counselors work with the families to make sure they understand the college applications, and are aware of scholarships that are available from colleges and universities in Arizona and other states.

Career and Technical Education (CTE) Programs: Every Metro Tech student participates in a two-year CTE program, starting with their junior year. These programs range from accounting, drafting and computer networking to auto technology and cosmetology. The students’ CTE studies make it evident that advanced education is necessary to their career.

Science Foundation Arizona Grant: A $900,000 grant from Science Foundation Arizona this year is allowing the school to increase hands-on projects that integrate academics with career and technical education, and prepare students for green-collar jobs.

American Dream Academy: This nine-week training program teaches parents how to help their children prepare for college and partner with the school in supporting its college-going effort.

Teacher Professional Development: College professors work with teachers to raise their skills to the college-preparatory level by sharing instructional strategies and lessons. This helps teachers see how close—or far—they are from teaching at the desired level.

Demography is Not Destiny

One of the most difficult challenges the school faces are the underlying beliefs regarding low-income, minority students.

“We have amazing students many universities and colleges would be happy to have on their campuses,” said Principal McDonald. “We believe we will be well on our way to being a college preparatory school when our students, our teachers, our support staff, the parents and our community have that belief system in place.”