Business Review: Tech Valley High moves into new home at nanocollege

Megan Rogers | Aug 21, 2014, 6:09am EDT

Tech Valley High School principal Dan Liebert poses in a classroom space at the new campus. The cabinets pictured also double as whiteboard space.

Tech Valley High School will welcome about 140 students this fall to its new location on the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering campus in Albany, New York.

The high school moved this summer from its former East Greenbush location to its new campus, designed to enhance the school's mission of providing project-based learning in high-tech settings. The new building includes breakout space for small group work, whiteboards on the walls and cabinets, and classrooms that can be rearranged depending on the day's lesson. Other features include a fab lab with high-tech tools.

Officials held a ribbon cutting at the high school campus, 246 Tricentennial Drive, and gave tours to students, community members and members of the business alliance on Wednesday. Click on the photo to view a slideshow of the new high school.

"These teenagers will receive the kind of education colleges and universities across the globe dream of," said nanocollege CEO Alain Kaloyeros.

Other elected officials and educators spoke in support of Tech Valley's approach. Speakers included Lt. Gov. Robert Duffy, Columbia Development Cos. president Joe Nicolla, State University of New York chancellor Nancy Zimpher, Albany mayor Kathy Sheehan, Albany County Executive Dan McCoy, Questar III BOCES district superintendent Jim Baldwin, Capital Region BOCES district superintendent Charles Dedrick.

Tech Valley High School opened in 2007. It's first location was an empty office building at MapInfo. The school is operated by Questar III BOCES and Capital Region BOCES. Business and industry leaders provide input through the business alliance.

The school has been held up as a model for a high school that prepares students for 21st century careers. Space in the new building is dedicated for professional development and training for teachers, where two staff members will work full-time to offer training to educators. More than 350 people toured the school at its old location last year. Tech Valley principal Dan Liebert expects to welcome at least 700 people in the upcoming year.

Originally, the high school was supposed to inhabit a temporary space at the nanocollege, before moving into the $191 million zero energy nanotechnology (ZEN) building. The College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering Children's Museum of Science and Technology will move into the ZEN building, Kaloyeros says.