What doesn’t HTHI offer more language and elective courses for students?
The large, comprehensive high school model was designed to offer students more choices in elective courses, extracurricular activities and competitive sports. At the time, educators failed to recognize the consequences of creating such schools: students commonly attend 7 classes each day with shorter periods, larger class size and less attention from their teachers; instructors commonly have high student to teacher ratios (often 180:1 if instructors teach ~30 students for 6 class periods), prepare for 2-3 different courses each day as well as coach sports or oversee an extracurricular activity, use more traditional, textbook dependent teaching methods that require less preparation, and attend large and ineffective staff meetings due to large school size. This model often leads to teacher burn out and student apathy for obvious reasons. As part of the small school movement, High Tech High schools are attempting to change this trend by supporting teachers and offering students a more nur
