Treasure Valley Mathematics and Science Center, often referred to as Treasure Valley Math and Science Center or TVMSC, is a

public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkei ...

magnet school In the U.S. education system, magnet schools are public schools with specialized courses or curricula. "Magnet" refers to how the schools draw students from across the normal boundaries defined by authorities (usually school boards) as school ...

Boise, Idaho Boise (, , ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Idaho and is the county seat of Ada County. On the Boise River in southwestern Idaho, it is east of the Oregon border and north of the Nevada border. The downtown are ...

operated by the

Boise School District The Boise School District #1 is one of 115 public school districts in Idaho. The Boise School District serves a 456 square mile area of Ada County and is headquartered in Boise, Idaho. The district was founded in 1865 under the auspices of Idaho ...

that offers advanced

secondary Secondary may refer to: Science and nature * Secondary emission, of particles ** Secondary electrons, electrons generated as ionization products * The secondary winding, or the electrical or electronic circuit connected to the secondary winding i ...

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

science Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...

technology Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in medicine, science, ...

, and

research Research is "creativity, creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular att ...

classes to

students A student is a person enrolled in a school or other educational institution. In the United Kingdom and most commonwealth countries, a "student" attends a secondary school or higher (e.g., college or university); those in primary or elementary ...

living in the

Treasure Valley The Treasure Valley is a valley in the western United States, primarily in southwestern Idaho, where the Payette, Boise, Weiser, Malheur, Owyhee, and Burnt rivers drain into the Snake River. It includes all the lowland areas from Vale in rur ...

. After being accepted into the program, students attend TVMSC in its morning or afternoon sessions while they attend their normal

or non-public elementary, junior high, high schools, or are

home-schooled Homeschooling or home schooling, also known as home education or elective home education (EHE), is the education of school-aged children at home or a variety of places other than a school. Usually conducted by a parent, tutor, or an onlin ...

, during the other part of the day. Since the school's founding in 2004, the program has been led by Dr. Holly Maclean, who, as the school principal, carefully leads the school's twelve teachers who have extensive experience in the subjects they teach. Although the classes TVMSC offers are usually taught as advanced courses in grades seven through twelve, students at any age can apply for the school, as the program accepts students based on teacher recommendations that determine a student's desire to excel in math and science,

report card A report card, or just report in British English, communicates a student's performance academically. In most places, the report card is issued by the school to the student or the student's parents once to four times yearly. A typical report card ...

s to determine academic capability,

standardized test A standardized test is a test that is administered and scored in a consistent, or "standard", manner. Standardized tests are designed in such a way that the questions and interpretations are consistent and are administered and scored in a predete ...

scores to determine knowledge, and fulfillment of prerequisite math classes, which can be taken as summer classes before entering the program. TVMSC was founded in 2004 with a donation of $1,000,000 from

Micron Technology Micron Technology, Inc. is an American producer of computer memory and computer data storage including dynamic random-access memory, flash memory, and USB flash drives. It is headquartered in Boise, Idaho. Its consumer products, including ...

, whose headquarters are in Boise, as well as $300,000 worth of equipment from

Hewlett-Packard The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. HP developed and provided a wide variety of hardware components ...

, which has a large campus in Boise as well. Since cuts in funding caused by the

2008–2012 global recession The Great Recession was a period of marked general decline, i.e. a recession, observed in national economies globally that occurred from late 2007 into 2009. The scale and timing of the recession varied from country to country (see map). At t ...

inhibited the original plans for its own permanent location on the Boise State Campus, TVMSC holds its classes in the upper floor of the south wing at Riverglen Junior High School. TVMSC has two very successful teams that compete in the

National Science Bowl The National Science Bowl (NSB) is a high school and middle school science knowledge competition, using a quiz bowl format, held in the United States. A buzzer system similar to those seen on popular television game shows is used to signal an an ...

and the

National Middle School Science Bowl The National Middle School Science Bowl is a middle school academic competition, similar to Quiz Bowl, held in the United States. Two teams of four students each compete to answer various science-related questions. In order to determine which stud ...

. The middle school team placed 4th in the academic competition and 2nd in the electric car competition in 2014, 2013, and 2012, as well as placing 1st in the 2008 fuel cell car overall and 2nd fuel cell car race. As of the 2018–19 school year, the TVMSC mascot is the Sloth, selected by a student vote. The following year, the students voted to name the mascot Slothy Joe.

References

{{authority control Educational institutions established in 2004 Magnet schools in Idaho High schools in Boise, Idaho 2004 establishments in Idaho