Design Tech

Design Tech High School (d.tech) is an innovative, free, public high school authorized by the San Mateo Union High School District.  The school is open to all students in the state of California.  

Entrance is by lottery when the number of students seeking enrollment exceeds the number of spots available. The school was founded in 2014, and the first class of seniors graduated in 2018. The Oracle Education Foundation selected d.tech to become the first public high school to have a new state-of-the-art campus funded by a Silicon Valley company.

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Design Tech, or 'd.tech' as it's known among our students, has an explicit focus on the skills that help students forge an identity as caring citizens and young professionals. By combining academic content mastery with creative problem solving, Design Tech's goal is to give students the tools necessary for success in college and beyond.

The school has a diverse student body with wide-ranging interests that span the arts, music and dance, to the sciences and technology. A Design Tech education offers an opportunity to practice collaborative problem-solving strategies (Design) as well as build confidence handling ever-evolving technological tools (Tech). To accomplish this, students are provided with eight weeks of intersessions and focused design labs to explore new topics and build credits in accordance with -or that exceed - University of California requirements. 

We believe students are most successful when their education is personalized and students are asked to use their knowledge to improve the world around them. We also believe that students must learn not only academic skills such as literacy and mathematics, but the transferable success skills of collaboration and persistence.

The academic courses are Common Core aligned, and A-G accredited by the University of California. These are offered in addition to three signature programs: the Intersession, Design Lab and Design Tech's own 'makerspace', called the Design Realization Garage. Our students explore a wide-range of interests through these programs, as well as student-led clubs, and competitive sports. They are encouraged to develop core interests, and to explore a range of skills and subjects for greater understanding.

Visit the Design Tech School website.