When 100 freshmen walk through the doors of Manchester School of Technology in August, they will be the first class to spend four years at the school and call it their alma mater.

In the coming years, more students will be added until MST becomes host to a self-contained, four-year program for as many as 800 students.

“We have the big picture and the big idea. Now it's making sure the details are worked out,” said Karen R.H. White, principal of the school, which now provides classroom space and instructional labs for 900 students.

White said the school's first step is to know who will be in the freshman class, which will be selected by lottery. Once the students are known, the school can focus on what level of instruction — from remedial to accelerated — is needed.

The school, which underwent $9.6 million in upgrades two years ago, is not changing entirely. It will retain its two-year, career-technical model, but reduce that as it ramps up the high school program.

Within four years, White expects that as may as 800 students will use MST as their high school. Another 250 will use it as a tech school that supplements their high school course work.

In the meantime, next year will be the last at MST for the PASS program, an alternative-education program for problem students. But White said the PASS philosophy, which entails project-based, core-competency learning, forms the basis for the MST high-school model.

For example, carpentry class would use stairs and roof construction to learn the Pythagorean theorem. Research and writing skills used to devise a robot could satisfy English requirements. And the development of a computer game could involve Shakespearean characters.

“I certainly would have loved to have done that. It opens up more opportunities for kids,” said Darren Otten, a Memorial High School student who takes manufacturing-related courses at MST.

Otten, who will graduate this month, participated in the traditional career-technical education model of MST. He attends classes at Memorial for four hours, then two hours at MST. He described himself as a hybrid, one who can learn in both the traditional classroom as well as laboratory work.

“I don't hate it,” he said of his English, physics and pre-calculus courses at Memorial. “I certainly like learning over here better.”

MST won't have sports teams or non-tech after-school activities such as a drama club. But interested students will be able to join such activities in what would have been their home school, Otten said.

In a paper he wrote about MST's teaching model, he sees the school creating a new learning environment for the 21st century.

“It was like traveling into the abyss for us because it was a new way to learn and teach,” he wrote.

White said she hopes to have the six new teachers on board before the end of this school year. But she acknowledged that with budget pressures, she can't have them work over the summer to develop the project-based learning plans.

So early next year, freshmen students will be in classes to learn core subjects the traditional way, with some project-based opportunities thrown in, she said.

They may also earn certification in occupational health and cardiopulmonary resuscitation. They will also be exposed to all the career paths offered through the school.