Top 100 Best High Schools 2013 – Bergen County Technical High School  – Newsweek – 74/100

Bergen County Technical High School – Teterboro
City: Teterboro

AVG SAT: 1745                
AVG ACT: 28
SUBS LUNCH:11
AVG AP SCORE:3.3
NEWSWEEK SCORE: 3.63

504 U.S. 46, Teterboro, NJ 07608, United States

Bergen County Technical High School, also known as Bergen Tech, or more commonly “BT”, is a public high school serving students in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States . Bergen Tech comprises three campuses: Bergen County Academies in Hackensack, Bergen Tech in Teterboro, and Bergen Tech in Paramus.

As of the 2010-11 school year, BT/Teterboro had an enrollment of 643 students and 63.0 classroom teachers (on an FTE basis), for a student–teacher ratio of 10.21:1. There were 38 students (5.9% of enrollment) eligible for free lunch and 30 (4.7% of students) eligible for reduced-cost lunch.

Awards, recognition and rankings:
The school was recognized in 2012 by the National Blue Ribbon Schools Program of the United States Department of Education, one of 15 private and public schools in the state to be honored that year.

In its 2013 report on “America’s Best High Schools”, The Daily Beast ranked the school 74th in the nation among participating public high schools and 7th among schools in New Jersey. The school was ranked 104th in the nation and sixth in New Jersey on the list of “America’s Best High Schools 2012” prepared by The Daily Beast / Newsweek, with rankings based primarily on graduation rate, matriculation rate for college and number of Advanced Placement / International Baccalaureate courses taken per student, with lesser factors based on average scores on the SAT / ACT, average AP/IB scores and the number of AP/IB courses available to students.

Schooldigger.com ranked the school tied for 18th out of 381 public high schools statewide in its 2011 rankings (a decrease of 6 positions from the 2010 ranking) which were based on the combined percentage of students classified as proficient or above proficient on the mathematics (98.3%) and language arts literacy (100.0%) components of the High School Proficiency Assessment (HSPA).

History:
Bergen Tech was originally a shared-time vocational school which was completely revamped in 2000 to be a full-time, academic high school with students taking classes in their particular “majors.” Since 2001, Bergen Technical High School, Teterboro has grown to be a notable public high school of choice for all Bergen County residents. A number of advanced classes have been added to Bergen Tech’s curriculum, including AP Physics C, and most recently AP Government to sophomores in the Law and Justice major. The high school has recently gained the interest from schools abroad with the intention of creating a foreign exchange program, receiving visits from high schools in France and South Korea (due to a partnership between the Hyundai Motor Company and the Bergen Tech Automotive major).

Academics:
The large applicant pool results partly from interest in major programs but mostly from the school’s overall strong academics. For example they currently offer 14 different Advanced Placement (AP) courses, including every science AP course offered by the College Board. Approximately 81.4% of students participate in Advanced Placement classes, well above the New Jersey state average participation rate of 19%. Bergen Tech has also been recognized for their rigorous physics department, where nearly 64% of students move on to take AP Physics B in their sophomore year.

Students at Bergen Tech, Teterboro participate in the SkillsUSA competition yearly. The school gained a record-breaking achievement of eight gold medals, nine silver medals and three bronze medals for their 2012 chapter.

Bergen Tech, Teterboro offers a wide range of advanced mathematics courses as well. These include: Algebra I, Geometry, Math Analysis I & II (a highly rigorous 2-year Precalculus with Limits course with a heavy emphasis on Algebra II and Trigonometry), AP Calculus AB/BC, and AP Statistics. Currently all courses at Bergen Tech are either honors or Advanced Placement courses.

Bergen Tech, Teterboro’s specialized curriculum adds a lab period once a week to every student’s schedule, which is equivalent to two regular periods. In these labs, students perform unique experiments to understand real-life methods applications of the sciences they are studying. Experiments range from creating a personal generator to measuring the frequency of a sonic boom.

Every Wednesday during the school year, periods are shortened to accommodate an additional hour before the day’s end. This period is known as Project Wednesday. Types of projects that students can apply to are: knitting, Physics Olympiad, Garage Band, Radio Lab, Equations, The Sims, Robotics, Earth preservation, Fitness, Teacher, and many more. Freshmen are required to take a project named “School Climate” to help adjust to Bergen Tech’s intense coursework.

Robert Goodman, a Bergen Tech physics teacher, was named New Jersey Teacher of the Year for 2005-2006. Goodman is an advocate of the Physics First methodology and did his doctoral dissertation at Rutgers University was based on the success of teaching Physics First to freshman.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bergen_County_Technical_High_School