Project profile: High Tech High Chula Vista

High Tech High Chula Vista is a public charter school serving 550 students in grades 9 to 12 with an approach rooted in project-based learning. The school fosters student engagement by knowing students well, tapping into student experience and interests, and building a strong sense of community. Through internships and projects based in the community, students collaborate with adults on work with meaning that extends well beyond the school walls.

Located in Chula Vista, California, High Tech High is at the center of one of the most economically and culturally diverse zones in the United States, just seven miles south of downtown San Diego and seven miles north of the US/Mexico border's busiest port of entry. The school takes advantage of this unique context to draw students from a non-meritocratic, zip-code based lottery to randomly select students in a way that ensures diversity. Coupled with a lack of ability groupings within the school, it is both diverse and integrated.

The facilities reflect the school's guiding principles of personalization, adult-world connection, and common intellectual mission. These principles permeate every aspect of life at HTH: the small school and class sizes, the openness and transparency, sustainable design attributes, and showcasing of student work in progress.
(2011 AIA/COTE Top Ten Green Projects recipient)