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Abstract
There are few published standards for local educational professionals to use when designing a specialized technology instructional facility or high-tech high school. The purpose of this study is to determine the essential facility components when designing and building such an educational facility. The research question was derived from a void in the research or practical literature providing school or district level administrators a guide in the planning for and creation of a facility specifically devoted to instruction in high-end technology programs. A list of facility design components as considered essential by Chief Information Officers of local school districts and the local school technology coordinators/technicians in designing a high school facility focusing on technology programs of study and to determine if the two groups agree on essential elements of school design will be the result. The resulting list will serve as a resource for school/district administrators looking for a starting point when faced with designing a high tech high school. A Survey Instrument was sent to two sample respondent pools of Chief Information Officers for school districts and school based technology coordinators as the study sample pool. The instrument asked respondents to identify what they believe to be essential elements to include in an educational facility focusing on instruction in and using the latest technology from a list constructed from a search of current literature. The Survey Instruments purposes were to rank order per respondent group the list of possible essential facility components and determine how closely the two respondent pools were in agreement on the listed essential facility components. The study revealed that school district chief information officers and school based technology coordinators did not agree of what essential components need to be included in a high tech high school. However, in ranking the components in the study the two groups did agree on three of the top five items. Those three items were all in the technology infrastructure category.