Curriculum
TJHSST offers an extensive mathematics and science curriculum, including courses in organic chemistry, neurobiology, marine biology, DNA science, and quantum mechanics. All courses at TJHSST are taught at the Honors, Advanced Placement, or post-Advanced Placement level. All students are required to complete Calculus (AB or BC) before graduation. All students are required to complete an introductory Java computer science course before their junior year; a recent addition includes a single introductory Python computer science class, in which students are randomly placed into. Seniors must also participate in the Senior Technology Laboratory Research program, which consists of a year-long research project or an off-campus mentorship through one of the school's research labs. These labs are devoted to numerous fields, including computer science, robotics, microelectronics, chemistry, prototyping, optics, computer aided design, astronomy, biotechnology, and oceanography. There was recently some debate over the inclusion of the Video Technology Lab, responsible among other things for producing the school's video morning announcement program. It was ultimately decided that the Video Technology Lab would be closed, despite an active letter writing campaign by students to the Board of Education. However, a similar lab taught by the same teacher, the Communications Systems Lab, was introduced for the 2009 school year.
A new technology lab was recently approved in neuroscience.
The school also offers a strong humanities and foreign language curriculum. Japanese, Chinese (Mandarin), and Russian are taught in addition to the more traditional German, French, Spanish, and Latin. Every other year, Pskov State Pedagogical University students from Russia visit TJHSST. The language department celebrated the ten-year anniversary of its sister school relationship with Chiben Gakuen High School, a Japanese high school famous for its baseball program, in 2003. Each year in March, ten exchange students and one teacher come to spend a month in the US. TJ students are given the opportunity to reciprocate during the summer with the school's Chiben Summer Program.
TJ also offers its IBET (Integrated Biology, English, and Technology) program to ninth graders. Students spend nine class periods a week with the same group of peers, and the IBET teachers work together to produce an integrated curriculum. The technology aspect of the program (formally known as Principles of Engineering and Technology) stresses drafting, CAD, and basic electronics skills. Integrated Humanities courses are offered in 10th and 11th grade, with several integrated programs available for seniors. Currently, the idea to integrate Chemistry into 10th grade humanities has been proposed as the "CHUM" concept.
All students attending TJHSST must pursue a special TJ Diploma. The TJ Diploma requirements duplicate those of the Virginia Advanced Studies Diploma with additional mathematics, computer science, earth science, and engineering requirements.
Read more about this topic: Thomas Jefferson High School For Science And Technology
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“If we focus exclusively on teaching our children to read, write, spell, and count in their first years of life, we turn our homes into extensions of school and turn bringing up a child into an exercise in curriculum development. We should be parents first and teachers of academic skills second.”
—Neil Kurshan (20th century)