Toppenish Students Find Love Of Math And Science
TOPPENISH -- State lawmakers traveled from Olympia to tour what is now a rare program aimed at inspiring high school students to excel. As Action News discovered, in just three years it's growing in popularity and improving math and science scores.
Toppenish high school and its new programs are making a big impression on state legislators.
"I'm really excited to see these students engaged in the learning process," said state representative Sharon Tomiko Santos.
Junior Joaquin Horta is just one of those students enrolled in the engineering and now bio-medical program at Toppenish high school.
"I feel really lucky because I really like these classes and I’m pretty fortunate," he said.
Not the usual response you get when asking students about school, but these aren't your usual classes.
"It has what normal classes have worksheets and stuff like that but it also has hands on activities," said Horta.
Students are working with levers and pulleys, soldering and solving engineering problems on computers; bringing their problem solving as well as math and science skills all together.
The positive results of these classes are easy to see. There are already more kids signed up for pre-calculus, trigonometry and chemistry... all classes that will help them in their future.
A future that will now be brighter for more students with a close to 400% increase in pre-calculus enrollment and 61% increase in trigonometry enrollment making higher math the new standard.
"They don't know that they are being challenged at that level they just think it's the norm," said teacher Arnulfo Gonzalez.
Teachers are happy to have the courses available to these kids who are deprived of many other opportunities with 99% of students on free or reduced lunch.
"So when you bring technology, when you bring opportunities to communities like ours kids are ready to jump on board and do whatever it takes to learn it," he said.
Horta will tell you it's turned him from a student who questioned his future to a student with a likely future in engineering.
Toppenish is the only high school in our area with the program. There is only a handful in the state, but after the visit from legislators they hope to expand it to more schools.
Toppenish high school and its new programs are making a big impression on state legislators.
"I'm really excited to see these students engaged in the learning process," said state representative Sharon Tomiko Santos.
Junior Joaquin Horta is just one of those students enrolled in the engineering and now bio-medical program at Toppenish high school.
"I feel really lucky because I really like these classes and I’m pretty fortunate," he said.
Not the usual response you get when asking students about school, but these aren't your usual classes.
"It has what normal classes have worksheets and stuff like that but it also has hands on activities," said Horta.
Students are working with levers and pulleys, soldering and solving engineering problems on computers; bringing their problem solving as well as math and science skills all together.
The positive results of these classes are easy to see. There are already more kids signed up for pre-calculus, trigonometry and chemistry... all classes that will help them in their future.
A future that will now be brighter for more students with a close to 400% increase in pre-calculus enrollment and 61% increase in trigonometry enrollment making higher math the new standard.
"They don't know that they are being challenged at that level they just think it's the norm," said teacher Arnulfo Gonzalez.
Teachers are happy to have the courses available to these kids who are deprived of many other opportunities with 99% of students on free or reduced lunch.
"So when you bring technology, when you bring opportunities to communities like ours kids are ready to jump on board and do whatever it takes to learn it," he said.
Horta will tell you it's turned him from a student who questioned his future to a student with a likely future in engineering.
Toppenish is the only high school in our area with the program. There is only a handful in the state, but after the visit from legislators they hope to expand it to more schools.
More to Explore
Learn about changes coming to commenting