Valley Tech dedicates four new classrooms

Spokane Valley Tech celebrated the completion of its building with a dedication of four new classrooms Tuesday evening.

The alternative high school opened three years ago and has 120 students from across the Spokane area taking classes in topics like entrepreneurship, mathematics and engineering.

Director Scott Oakshott said Valley Tech just filled its first freshman class with students who will spend all their high school time there.

“Valley Tech is a regional school so we also accept students from Spokane,” Oakshott said. Some classes, like engineering, still have openings for the fall, but the first full-time freshman class is full.

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The school is a lot like a skills center, but it offers different science- themed classes.

“We don’t compete with the other schools,” Oakshott said.

At Valley Tech, students can take a class in engineering with a curriculum that was co-designed by Boeing.

“When they graduate they can go straight to work for Boeing,” Oakshott said. “Or they can use that background to go on to something else like computer science or manufacturing.”

A biomedicine class is working on a dog genetics project, learning how to take DNA samples using a little toothbrush, then analyzing the DNA, looking for specific genetic markers that show the dog’s susceptibility to a disease.

Other students may join Valley Tech for the last two years of their high school education and graduate with a focus on engineering that includes a 90- day internship.

“Many of our students go on to four-year schools but we are too young to have any longitudinal data on that yet,” Oakshott said.

Valley Tech is located in an old Rite Aid building at 10722 E. Sprague Ave. and has been remodeled in three phases. The final stage, which was just completed, added the last classrooms and a stage for presentations in the multipurpose room.

Walking through the school prior to the Tuesday evening reception, Oakshott couldn’t hide his enthusiasm.

“It feels great to have it all done,” he said, “and we can always use more students.”