The light glowed dimly, at least in the room, but served as a beacon for big plans and past ideas.

Cody Hagen and Austin Miner, both 18, inspired by Nikola Tesla and working with a team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, are developing ways to transmit electricity without wires.

So far, they've made their wireless currents light up objects a couple of inches away; the MIT team is up to seven feet, they said. Still, they correspond frequently, with the Massachusetts side offering tips through email.

PHOTOS: STEM gallery

"They're all really cool people out there," Cody said.

The two seniors at Toledo Technology Academy weren't told to work with the MIT team -- they sought it out themselves.

Housed at the former DeVilbiss High School on Upton Avenue, the Toledo Technology Academy is a success story for Toledo Public Schools. The academy, along with the Toledo Early College High School, are the district's two magnet high schools. Both score in the top academic tier of schools in Ohio.

Much of Toledo Public Schools' transformation plan's first year has been built on investments in the district's lowest-performing schools, with new teachers, programs, and strategies added in an attempt to boost test scores and soften perceptions that TPS is an ineffective system.

Big changes are still to come, and some are likely to involve the two magnet schools. Administrators want to develop a K-12 campus devoted to a science, technology, engineering, math, and medicine (STEMM) curriculum by building off the two magnet schools.

Espousing the benefits of educational choice may not be the most popular of acts in a school system that has lamented the impact of charter schools and voucher programs, but for the technology academy's director, Gary Thompson, it's too late to worry about fighting off educational choice.

"Take a cold, hard look at the facts," he said. "People are making choices. It really doesn't matter if I like it or not."

And so the STEMM campus is the district's greatest-choice salvo in the transformation plan, and it builds from the magnet schools' already strong bases.

The STEMM concept is a popular trend in education, and school leaders argue that programs focused on those disciplines prepare students for growing industries with available, well-paying jobs. The concept is also amenable to project-based learning and tends to be popular with parents.

Bob Midden, director of the Northwest Ohio Center for Excellence in STEM Education and a Bowling Green State University professor, said that most jobs now require training in at least some of the math and STEMM fields. Even in factories, many jobs require employees to program machines, not physically operate them.

"These are the areas right now where you have some of the most numerous jobs openings," he said.

The concept continues to grow, Mr. Midden said, with at least a dozen STEM-focused schools opened in northwest Ohio in the past five years, by his estimate. Toledo has one of the best, he said, and a K-8 program that acts as a feeder school would help strengthen the existing schools.

The Toledo Technology Academy focuses on technological and engineering skills with project-based learning. Each student must complete a capstone course, and seniors all complete internships. Students also can earn college credits. They also are required to get mentors, said Robert Sintobin, senior instructor, which is how the relationship among Cody, Austin, and the MIT team started.

Meanwhile, Toledo's Early College High School allows students to take 60 credits of college courses through the University of Toledo while in high school. The program is housed at UT's Scott Park campus. When students complete the program, they graduate with a high school diploma but can enter college as juniors.

Both schools have proved successful. When Ohio recently ranked all public high schools by test scores, Toledo Early College ranked 17th in the state and was the top-ranked school in the Toledo metro area. The technology academy ranked 121th out of about 3,500 schools that were ranked.

Although other TPS schools' enrollments shrank, the two magnet schools grew, although modestly. Enrollment at the early college school went to 209 last year from 152 in the 2006-2007 school year, and the technology academy grew to 166 students from 153.

District administrators are working with both magnet schools' governing boards to develop the STEMM program. The K-8 school would act as a magnet program, where students from throughout the district apply to the school. When they get to high school, they can choose either the technology academy program, with a focus on technology and engineering, or the early college program, with a focus on science or medicine.

The district already has a STEM school at the Chase STEM Academy, although that school pulls students from traditional boundaries such as other elementary schools. Jim Gault, TPS' chief academic officer, said the new STEMM school wouldn't affect Chase, which district leaders hope to strengthen, not eliminate. The added M for medicine in STEMM is a new trend in education, after the Chase school was developed.

Several questions still surround the idea, which most likely will mean the initiative won't roll out until 2013.

For instance, TPS officials don't know if the early college school should move to the DeVilbiss campus or remain at Scott Park.

Containing the entire program at one place has advantages, but Mr. Gault said that the early college school's spot at the Scott Park campus is an effective selling point to parents.

"There is some power being on the university," he said.

The potential growth is a significant change of fortune for the magnet schools, one built by their success. The schools' very existence was threatened in recent years during budget cuts as previous administrative teams argued that the programs weren't required by the state.

The STEMM school is not the only foray into building choice programs in the Toledo schools. The transformation plan calls for each of the district's six traditional high schools to develop specialized programs, such as a proposed performing arts school at Bowsher.

But many of those changes depend on money. District administrators are aggressively searching for grants to establish the STEMM program. The other high schools are likely to depend on the passage of a levy this fall.

Contact Nolan Rosenkrans at: nrosenkrans@theblade.com or 419-724-6086.

First Published April 1, 2012, 4:00 a.m.