New Anchorage Charter School opens in September: Highland Tech High will teach the basic courses, as well as focus on business and technology.

• Author: Cutler, Debbie

Patricia and Robert McDonald of Girdwood want a new start for their son, Ian. Last year he was a 10th-grade student at Dimond High School, but wasn't doing well. In fact, he will have to repeat his sophomore year and the couple worried if he would be motivated enough to graduate.

Then they learned about Highland Tech High, a new charter school affiliated with the Anchorage School District that will open in Anchorage in September. The school provides a more hands-on learning atmosphere, with internships and plenty of computer work. The McDonalds went to an informational meeting about the new school, which is designed for students at all levels, and liked what they heard.

"It looked so great," said Patricia. "The main thing is it's project-oriented learning. I think our son will do better there than in the big, noisy classroom situation he is in right now at Dimond. He likes the part about getting out in the community to see how businesses are run, the apprenticeship part of it. It's a more individualized setting instead of him being a small fish in a big pond. He's willing to be in a new school without his buddies. I hope he'll turn in a more positive direction and get more out of learning than he does now."

The school is the brainchild of parents whose children attend or attended Aquarian Charter School, an elementary school based on the gifted-education program through the Anchorage School District. "A group of people there wanted a project-based program for kids in middle school and high school," said Highland Tech High Principal/CEO C.J. Stiegele. "So when I left Aquarian (as principal) in 2001, I started writing the charter proposal to do that. I came up with the model."

Stiegele is not new to the charter school business. She worked as assistant principal at the first charter school to be approved in Alaska--Takotna Training Center and Charter School (now Takotna Community School), which opened in 1996 near McGrath as part of the Iditarod School District. In 1997, Takotna branched out to form a homeschool extension, Distance Learning Center, located in a fourplex in Eagle River. Stiegele was there as principal/director for the 1997-1998 school year. That was the same year Aquarian opened and Stiegele's experience with charter schools landed her a position on the academic policy committee, which is the governing board of the charter school. The next year she became principal of Aquarian. Since she left there, she has been working on...