Tech Topics - Spring 2008 - (Page 34)

Burdell&Friends High-Tech GARY MEEK HOPE J students, for example, throughout the year will complete projects that teach them about alternative energy such as fuel cells, aerodynamics, electrical By Karen Hill engineering and aerospace engineering, to name a few of the subjects. oseph and Brenda Stinson, both “By far, the most popular are ICS 88, used to send their oldest building bridges and making rocket daughter on a near 60-mile daily round launchers,” Joseph Stinson said. trip across Atlanta to a private middle Tech professors and alumni have school. It was, they believed, the only helped lead project teams and brought way for her to get the technology-based Hope students to campus for field education that would serve her well. trips. Joseph’s brother, Jeff Stinson, IE Then the lightbulb switched on 90, teaches science to upper classes at above their heads. Hope. “I thought, ‘Why are we trying to The school is modeled on High find people who can educate our kids? Tech High in San Diego, supported by This is crazy. Why can’t we do it?’” the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. said Brenda Stinson. That school, with which the Gateses She left her job as an information became involved in 2000, uses a technology manager with Cooper rigorous curriculum in which students Industries and he left his job as a complete complex team projects consulting systems engineer with Cisco combining math, science and history — Systems. Together, in April 2007, they producing a field guide of the opened the Hope environment of San Schools of Diego Bay, for Excellence, example, or I want to build merging with an designing a satellite existing private tag to track a sea the next elementary school. turtle. The Stinsons generation so that Less than a and their staff plan it can build things, year later, 97 to travel to students, ranging create things, California up to in age from 3 to four times a year work with its 14, fill most of two for seminars with hands. floors of space High Tech officials. rented in the So far, most of Family Life Center the school’s of a large nondenominational church in funding comes from the annual tuition Lithonia, Ga. On a recent sunny of $7,000 per student. The school also Monday, 3-year-olds sat quietly in one has received some foundation support room, practicing how to write the and is applying for grants. The school, capital letter I. Across the hall, fourtha 501c3, nonprofit organization, also and fifth-graders sat in a computer lab, seeks support from the community to learning about bits and bytes — with maintain its tuition rates. the goal, said teacher Gwendolyn The Stinsons plan to add a grade Syphoe, of learning how computers each year to the school, graduating the actually run. Upstairs, eighth- and first class of seniors in 2011. They plan ninth-graders in one classroom to include an internship as part of each completed biology lab reports on student’s high school years, based on diffusion, while seventh-graders next Tech’s co-op program. The internships, door read classical Chinese poetry in Brenda Stinson said, will give students Chinese. practical information on which to base With the exception of the 3-yeara career choice and will cap years of olds, who have desktop computers in field trips to companies during which their room, all the students work from children as young as first-graders laptops. All classrooms operate at least “shadow” professionals through their one year ahead of standard grade level, workdays. the Stinsons said. Although the “We will be taking kids out of this students use some textbooks, the focus environment, showing them the is on hands-on learning, primarily practical applications of what they through the sciences. Teams of learn. They’ll know they’re not just Alumni couple launch Schools of Excellence Hope Schools of Excellence co-founders Brenda and Joseph Stinson organize materials used in students’ team projects that combine math, science and history lessons. “ learning something because someone says they need to learn it,” Brenda Stinson said. The Stinsons seem to be building their school with an eye to both the past and the future. “When I came to Tech, I wanted to be a computer scientist but hadn’t seen a computer. (Joseph) came in and he had one — you see the disparity?” Brenda Stinson said. “It’s not just that my parents didn’t have one, it’s that there was not one in my high school and that was the shame of it.” Brenda grew up in Americus, Ga., and Joseph in Nashville, Tenn. “We haven’t become a nation of builders but of consumers,” added Joseph Stinson. “I want to build the next generation so that it can build things, create things, work with its hands.” Joseph and Brenda Stinson have three children, two girls and a boy: Jabria, 12; Janai, 7; and Joseph III, 4. The two youngest attend Hope School now. Joseph said the oldest will transfer there in the fall of ’08 from Atlanta Girls School. Brenda Stinson said that the process of opening a school took between 12 and 15 months. They began by developing a business plan that included marketing strategies and determined whether they should apply for nonprofit status and their target audience. Once that was in place, they registered with the Georgia secretary of state and the federal IRS as a nonprofit, which Brenda Stinson described as “a very long, drawn-out process.” The couple decided on a site and began looking for employees to ensure that they complied with state regulations regarding class sizes. Finally, they applied for dual accreditation with the Southern Association of Independent Schools and the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. Because the school is so new, they won’t actually receive accreditation until this spring, when accrediting officials are scheduled to visit. With SACS accreditation, she said, Hope graduates will be eligible for the state lotteryfunded HOPE scholarships. It’s been a year with its share of sleepless nights, conceded Joseph Stinson. “But we’re used to sleepless nights. There’s not a lot of sleep that a Cisco consulting systems engineer gets. My wife didn’t get a lot of sleep working for Cooper either — she managed people in Japan, with that time difference, and sometimes would have conference calls every four hours throughout the weekend. “Here, it’s sleepless nights, yes, but it’s also the satisfaction, the smiles on the kids’ faces, being around family.” 34 “ TECHTOPICS | SPRING 2008

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Tech Topics - Spring 2008

Tech Topics - Spring 2008 Contents Mail Call Gold & White Honors Alumni House Sweet Spring Centennial Buzz Supreme Court Victory The Hill ‘Treasure Trove’ of Stories Living History Forget-me-not Fashion Student Life Investing in Graduates Giving Back Training the Next Generation Burdell & Friends Ingredients for Success Yellow Jackets Hockey Club Ices Georgia Tech Job Hunters Fare Well Real World

Tech Topics - Spring 2008

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