Students Set Their Own Rules at New Technology High School

When Montebello’s new $30 million, career-oriented high school opened its doors to more than 250 freshmen earlier this month, students were quickly told to shed their habit of waiting for teachers to tell them what to do.

For one, there are no bells to signal the beginning and end of a class or rest period – students must keep an eye on the clock and be ready for class at the scheduled time.

In each classroom, students are also organized into groups and expected to give regular presentations to the entire class.

And when Applied Technology Center Principal Patricia Luckeroth-Lockhart makes one of her frequent stops into a classroom, she asks students if they know “why they’re learning what they’re learning.”

Not only are students expected to be able to answer this question confidently, they must also get used to addressing teachers and school administrators less as authority figures, and more as equals, Luckeroth-Lockhart says.