This is the second of a four-part series looking at how $20 million in grants provided by the Lilly Endowment will be spent to prepare workers and bring jobs to northeast Indiana through job retraining, high-tech high school programs, and college technology courses and equipment. The grant, announced last month, will be shared by IPFW, Ivy Tech, WorkOne Northeast and regional K-12 school systems.


Indiana has the fastest-growing New Tech community in the country. Six schools already employ the program, and another four, including Wayne High School, plan to start this fall.

With $5 million from a Lilly Endowment grant, interest is sure to expand.

Late last month, Lilly awarded $20 million to the Community Foundation of Greater Fort Wayne for economic development in northeast Indiana. Of that grant, $5 million will be used to further the expansion of New Tech programs in the 11-county area.

In order to receive any part of the money, however, schools must begin their programs before 2012 when the money runs out. With Wayne already at the starting gate, it’s a likely candidate to receive funding.

But FWCS is not the only local school district looking to vie for some cash. East Allen County Schools is also considering a New Tech high school, especially in the midst of its reconfiguration process.

“This is a proven model that has been very successful for kids,” said Deputy Superintendent Jan MacLean. EACS is looking at Harding High School as a possible location. “(New Tech) is a natural offshoot of that foundation that is already here in East Allen.”

New Tech is a national program that focuses on project-based learning and encourages the use of new technology in problem-solving. It’s based on a school in Napa, Calif., which heard appeals from the business community and took action.

“Local business folks were pushing back to the schools, saying students weren’t ready to come out into the workforce,” said Cindy Mills, California-based New Technology Foundation’s school development coordinator. So in 1996, New Tech was born. Within six years, schools around the country began to copy the model.

FWCS began to seriously consider the program about one year ago, and with space available at Wayne, the timing just seemed right.

For the first year, only 100 students will participate at Wayne, with more added each year to a total goal of 400 in four years. Sixty-six have enrolled so far for the fall.

Each day, students will be immersed in project-based learning by working in teams and taking initiative in their own education. Each student has a computer, and everything from math to history is taught in this setting, for the most part.

“The students that go through New Tech will graduate essentially going through school in a real work environment,” FWCS spokeswoman Krista Stockman said.

And that was Lilly’s goal. By providing what Community Foundation Executive Director David Bennett called a “transformational process,” students will help in the long run create a better workforce, especially in the areas of math and science, which is a primary focus of the grant.

It will be some time before schools are able to receive funding, however. Bennett said grant details are still being decided but the Community Foundation hopes to have that clarified within the next 60-90 days.

“We don’t want a long time to go by before we clarify this,” he said.