The 257,500-square-foot, 1,340-student school features eight neighborhood clusters on four levels, centered around large group instruction spaces and serving three academic centers of excellence – Humanities, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math), and Fine & Performing Arts, as well as a Freshman Academy named the Terrier House. Large group instruction spaces are one- and two-story flexible teaching labs that allow for cross-disciplinary teaching, project-based learning programs, and multi-media instruction, as well as student and team governance.
A Civic Jewel, an Academic Beacon
The City of West Springfield needed help: Its aging high school was no longer capable of adequately serving the needs of the community. Salvation came in the form of acceptance into the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ “Model School Program,” which was established to help communities and the state save costs through the adoption of a pre-established physical high school model, due to efficiencies of design and schedule during a down economy. In the fall of 2010, SMMA was selected as the designer for the new and improved West Springfield High School, the second of our model high schools, based on our national-award-winning Hudson High School.
The school was the community’s first new significant educational space under the superintendent’s 21st Century School Initiative, and allows the City to take advantage of the State’s only model high school that features a building organized for the complex and evolving student/learner-focused education anticipated by the Education Reform Act.
The administration’s stated desire from the outset was to have a facility capable of transforming traditional department-based practices, thereby initiating a new cultural paradigm. SMMA’s primary project goals: Provide a unique physical building model to allow staff and students to connect across a broad spectrum of curricula, enhance student-directed learning by providing a wide array of flexible use options, and deliver a building that literally, physically opens itself to the broader community that it supports.