Sussex Technical High School is a public high school

High school

High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....

 in Georgetown, Delaware

Georgetown, Delaware

Georgetown is a town in Sussex County, Delaware, United States. According to 2010 census figures, the population of the town is 6,422, an increase of 38.3% over the previous decade...

. Its enrolment at last count was roughly 1,200 students. As a choice school, each year over 600 eighth-grade students in Sussex County

Sussex County, Delaware

Sussex County is a county located in the southern part of the U.S. state of Delaware. As of 2010 the population was 197,145, an increase of 25.9% over the previous decade. The county seat is Georgetown. The Seaford Micropolitan Statistical Area includes all of Sussex County.Sussex County is...

 apply for 300 openings. Its mascot

Mascot

The term mascot – defined as a term for any person, animal, or object thought to bring luck – colloquially includes anything used to represent a group with a common public identity, such as a school, professional sports team, society, military unit, or brand name...

 is a raven

Raven

Raven is the common name given to several larger-bodied members of the genus Corvus—but in Europe and North America the Common Raven is normally implied...

.

Also known as Sussex Tech, the school was one of two Delaware high schools recognized by the U.S. Department of Education as a Blue Ribbon School in 2008 for academic achievement. It was previously selected by the Department of Education in 1996 as one of ten showcase site schools, receiving the New American High Schools

New American High Schools

The New American High Schools initiative, started in 1996 under the direction of the United States Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley, is a national recognition program for United States secondary schools.-Description:...

 award for high levels of success.

The school is operated by Sussex Technical School District, an overlay district serving all of Sussex County

Sussex County, Delaware

Sussex County is a county located in the southern part of the U.S. state of Delaware. As of 2010 the population was 197,145, an increase of 25.9% over the previous decade. The county seat is Georgetown. The Seaford Micropolitan Statistical Area includes all of Sussex County.Sussex County is...

.

History

Built in 1961, Sussex Tech started as the Sussex Vocational-Technical High School. At that time, it provided students career training to prepare Sussex County students to enter the workforce after high school graduation. Students would spend half the day at their home high school, then spend the rest of the day at Sussex Tech learning a trade.

Sussex Tech became a full-time high school in 1991, offering a comprehensive program of academic courses as well as technical education. With additions, the school grew to a total of 82 classrooms. By 2009, Sussex Tech had 14 technical fields of study from which students could choose.

School library

With its full-time conversion in 1991, Sussex Tech also opened its own library and hired a librarian. This project started in a small storage room with a desk, chair, one computer and no books. It quickly filled to capacity.

In 2000, the school opened its current library, known as the Benjamin Franklin Information Center. The new library emphasized the school's technical focus, relying on computer workstations for access to resources in external networks. Sussex Tech's library led the state of Delaware by 2007, with 75 computers available for its students. During that same year, the library became the first to implement Delaware's Statewide Library Catalog and Schoolrooms system, an interface allowing students to reserve and request books from any library in the state, and also providing online access to magazines and newspapers. Books requested from other locations through the statewide system are delivered to the school's library.

School awards

• U.S. Department of Education Blue Ribbon School (2008)
• Selected by the U.S. Department of Education and National Center for Research in Vocational Education as a New American High Schools|New American High School (1996).
• Selected by the State Board of Education to be a State Blue Ribbon High School (2008).
• Delaware Department of Education Superior Rating
• Selected by the Library of Congress
  Library of Congress
  The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
  
   as a "Library of the Future"

Athletics

Sussex Technical High School's athletic teams participate in the Henlopen Conference

Henlopen Conference

The Henlopen Conference is a high school sports conference comprising public schools in Kent County and Sussex County in lower Delaware. The teams participate in a variety of sports including football, boys and girls soccer, track and field, cross country, boys and girls basketball, boys and girls...

. As one of the larger high schools, based on enrollment, Sussex Tech competes in the Henlopen North division. (The largest schools of the conference belong to the Henlopen North division, which is a size category rather than geographic. Smaller schools belong to the Henlopen South division.)

Type of Sport	Boys	Girls
Cross country running Cross country running Cross country running is a sport in which people run a race on open-air courses over natural terrain. The course, typically long, may include surfaces of grass and earth, pass through woodlands and open country, and include hills, flat ground and sometimes gravel road...	Yes	Yes
Baseball Baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...	Yes	No
Basketball Basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...	Yes	Yes
Football American football American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...	Yes	No
Golf Golf Golf is a precision club and ball sport, in which competing players use many types of clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a golf course using the fewest number of strokes....	Yes	No
Field hockey Field hockey Field Hockey, or Hockey, is a team sport in which a team of players attempts to score goals by hitting, pushing or flicking a ball into an opposing team's goal using sticks...	No	Yes
Soccer	Yes	Yes
Track and field Track and field Track and field is a sport comprising various competitive athletic contests based around the activities of running, jumping and throwing. The name of the sport derives from the venue for the competitions: a stadium which features an oval running track surrounding a grassy area...	Yes	Yes
Wrestling Wrestling Wrestling is a form of grappling type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. A wrestling bout is a physical competition, between two competitors or sparring partners, who attempt to gain and maintain a superior position...	Yes	Yes
Lacrosse Lacrosse Lacrosse is a team sport of Native American origin played using a small rubber ball and a long-handled stick called a crosse or lacrosse stick, mainly played in the United States and Canada. It is a contact sport which requires padding. The head of the lacrosse stick is strung with loose mesh...	Yes	Yes
Swimming Swimming (sport) Swimming is a sport governed by the Fédération Internationale de Natation .-History: Competitive swimming in Europe began around 1800 BCE, mostly in the form of the freestyle. In 1873 Steve Bowyer introduced the trudgen to Western swimming competitions, after copying the front crawl used by Native...	Yes	Yes
Softball Softball Softball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of 10 to 14 players. It is a direct descendant of baseball although there are some key differences: softballs are larger than baseballs, and the pitches are thrown underhand rather than overhand...	No	Yes
Volleyball Volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules.The complete rules are extensive...	No	Yes