New tech-based school welcomes freshmen

GRAND RAPIDS TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WZZM) - Kent Innovation High School looks more like a corporate office than a school. And as a freshman, Colin Maynard is stoked to be in attendance.

"I'm very excited," says Maynard. "The school is much more collaborative. You're working together rather than working by yourself, which I like better than sitting in a lecture and reading a book."

Maynard is just one of 100 students enrolled at Innovation High, located on the campus of the Kent Intermediate School District. He attends Rockford High School in the afternoon, but in the mornings, receives a different sort of education at KIH.

The high school is modeled after the New Tech Program which implements new and innovative techniques into the classroom by using laptops and flatscreen TV's instead of textbooks and engaging the students in small-group projects.

"We're trying to prepare students for jobs that we're not even aware of exactly what they're going to look like in the next decade," says Kevin Konarska, Superintendent of Kent ISD.