Premier class act for Tech Valley High
DeNyse from BKW



BERNE — Josh DeNyse is one of 40 students in the Capital Region making a significant change this fall. Instead of reporting to the Berne-Knox-Westerlo High School, DeNyse will be attending Tech Valley High School.

Though he’ll be making a jump to a different school with new surroundings, DeNyse, sitting outside the BKW elementary school last spring, spoke calmly and wisely about change.

Tech Valley, promoted as a project-based learning environment, will have just 40 students in its first class. Students will report to the school at the headquarters of MapInfo Corporation in the Rensselaer Technology Park in Troy. By 2009, Tech Valley plans to move to its own location along the Interstate 90 corridor and enroll about 400 students.

At Tech Valley, students will take college-level courses and have laptop computers with them at all times.

Tech Valley doesn’t offer sports teams, but Fred Marcil, BKW’s junior-high principal, is trying to figure out a way for DeNyse to get back to Berne from Troy for baseball practices, DeNyse said. Making the lengthy daily bus ride to Troy, he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to attend all of the team’s practices.

After hearing about Tech Valley through his cousin, DeNyse said he then told his parents, who encouraged him to visit the BKW guidance office.
"I kind of liked what I read," he said. He then filled out an application and was accepted.

DeNyse said he likes Tech Valley’s programs because they offer different learning strategies — not lectures but projects — and because he’ll be presenting projects to business associates. Working on projects, he said, will help with presentation and group skills. DeNyse said he works well in groups because he openly expresses his ideas.

He is looking forward to the school’s hands-on approach.
"If you’re going to study a plant, I think it would be better to go outside and look at the plant, not to look at a picture of the plant," he said. Denyse also prefers learning through animal dissections, rather than memorization.
Next year, while attending Tech Valley, DeNyse said, he’ll miss his friends. "Your friends are your friends," he said. But, he said, some of them might move away. Attending Tech Valley, he said, is a way for him "to try and be set for life instead of just hanging out with my friends."
"Most of my friends don’t want me to go," he said, but he can still hang out with them on the weekends, and lives just a short bike ride from some of their homes.
DeNyse’s mother, Bridget DeNyse, is a long-time secretary at Albany High School, he said, and has been a secretary to house principals. Josh DeNyse said his mother told him he knows the English teacher chosen to teach at Tech Valley High this year. Bridget DeNyse also worked for Tech Valley principal Dan Liebert, he said. "My mom’s connected to most of the people I know," he said.
After high school, DeNyse plans to join the United States Marine Corps, continue his education, and become an engineer. He wants to design military aircraft and has "been fascinated by military airplanes for a long time."
DeNyse’s grandfather and uncles on his father’s side served in the military. "I’ve always been interested in the military, but I never got around to talking with them about it," he said. "We were always busy doing something else, and my grandfather died," he said.
Tech Valley’s orientation was in April, but DeNyse didn’t attend because he had a baseball game. "My duty is to this school first, not that school, because I’m not a student there yet," he said. "I do believe I’ll get along well with those kids because I’m a good people person."