"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them."        -Albert Einstein

Hope Technology School is a community of teachers, parents, and students who embrace the challenge of educational innovation.  This challenge is one best captured by the former Chairman and CEO of IBM Louis V. Gerstner.  He said "I often point out that if an American were put in a time capsule in 1895 and it was opened 100 years later, there would be few things in American life that person would recognize; transportation, communications, and virtually every facet of daily life would have changed.  The only American enterprise with which our latter-day Rip Van Winkle would be comfortable is our schools, since they are remarkably similar to the schools we had before the Spanish American War."

Those who choose to be a part of our learning community are those who cannot wait for public education to make this transformation.  In fact, it is our hope that the innovative practices we are developing here will one day be in every school around the nation.  In the meantime, for each one of us the future is now.

There are three principles that are at the heart of our fresh thinking about education.   The first is excellence which applies to our academic efforts.  The second is innovation which has made our culture one of finding solutions not simply implementing structure.  The third and perhaps most significant aspect of our educational approach is inclusion.  This practice has made our culture one of character building and social acceptance as each child participates in a classroom with both typical and special needs students.

Flexible Grouping: An Innovative and Inclusive Practice

The assumption in many schools is that students who are in the same grade, and are the same age, have the same needs and that they all learn similarly.  When and where have any group of children been the same individually?  Given the natural differences in classes, you have to group children within the class to meet their needs.  On top of that, we have cultural diversity and learning differences and our classes no longer are able to sustain whole class instruction.

Flexible grouping is the ability to set up any group within the class or school for the purposes of learning.   In the Hope Technology School children can cross age and grade levels to work together, we don't just group within a class.  There are several types of groups used at Hope Technology School:

1. Teacher led groups:  these are groups led by the teacher through direct instruction.

2. Teacher directed groups:  groups of students that work together on an assignment.

3. Student lead groups: the project is designed and carried forward by the students themselves.

4. Therapeutic groups:  a group of students under the direction of a therapist work to meet the needs of students in and beyond the curriculum.

5. Individual instruction: where students get the benefit of one on one help from an adult.

The wide array of groupings available to students and teachers at Hope Technology School make it a responsive and excellent place for all children to learn.