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<b>Pupils say Sci-Tech has professional atmosphere</b>

Tuesday, August 31, 2004
BY JOHN LUCIEW
Of The Patriot-News

At Harrisburg's Sci-Tech High, school has become another day at the office.

Natasha Jones rose early and rode a Capital Area Transit bus to the downtown building. The Harrisburg University Science and Technology High School has done away with the standard yellow school bus as an outdated mode of transportation.

Once downtown, Jones moved among the hustle and bustle of business men and women marching to office jobs. And when the 11th-grader arrived at the former YWCA building in the 200 block of Market Street, renovated at a cost of $16 million, it didn't look or feel like a school at all.

For Jones, the experience was more like reporting to work than showing up for the first day of classes.

"It's more businesslike," said Jones, who was among the 300 Sci-Tech students who got to tour the just-completed building yesterday. "I feel more like a grown-up."

Indeed, the building's slick and sleek design, inside and out, has the feel of a high-tech company. Students sit in swivel chairs, not at old-fashioned desks. The cafeteria looks more like a restaurant, complete with multiple mounted televisions.

Signs of all the latest technology -- whether it's the video projectors dangling overhead or the blinking wi-fi wireless Internet servers located throughout -- are everywhere. And the science labs would make a Ph.D. jealous.

"It's different," sophomore Aundra Mills agreed. "It's a different environment here. We're part of the downtown community. You've got people walking around with briefcases."

School officials, meanwhile, said they hope all the building's bells and whistles will promote the business of learning.

Sci-Tech is a venture of the Harrisburg School District and the Harrisburg University of Science and Technology, which is to begin university classes next fall. Sci-Tech, with its science- and math-heavy curriculum, was launched last year in Harrisburg's Rowland School with about half as many students.

But officials said yesterday's opening marked a new era for the city schools.

"It's a splendid edifice for education," declared Clare Jones, a member of the five-person Harrisburg Board of Control, which oversees the district with Mayor Stephen R. Reed.

"It lays the foundation for a bright future for the students, as well as a prosperous city," she added. "The future starts here."

The city school district opened yesterday with about 8,400 registered pupils. But Superintendent Gerald Kohn said that number is sure to climb, matching last year's enrollment of about 8,600.

At Harrisburg High School, some students were assigned classrooms in trailers as the district prepares for a two-year, $50 million project to renovate and expand the John Harris campus.

On a humid day when the temperature neared 90, the air-conditioned trailers were a cool respite from the rest of the sprawling building, officials said.

Also yesterday, Harrisburg completed the transition to kindergarten-through-eighth-grade schools. It's now possible for a city pupil to enter his or her neighborhood school at age 3 for all-day preschool and remain there through eighth grade. Officials said the new format eliminates disruptive transitions during the middle school years.

But by far the biggest buzz was about the new Sci-Tech building.

"All I've heard from the kids is 'wow, wow and wow,'" Clare Jones said.

The next student-pleasing milestone will occur when Sci-Tech distributes free laptop computers to students.

Officials said the computers have arrived, but technology workers are still loading their software. The laptops should be available in a few weeks, they said.

For Mills and other students, it will be just another step toward feeling professional.

"I feel like a business person, which is what I want to be when I grow up," he said.