Nashoba Regional School District, in collaboration with KBA’s in-house educational planners, recognized the benefits of rethinking and re-imagining how education is delivered to students. The project team and the District worked together to challenge the traditional teaching approaches beyond the educational visioning sessions. KBA’s educational planners, Craig Olsen and Kate Jessup worked with educational leaders at the school and community stakeholders to develop a robust Educational Program focusing on the Applied Arts. The Educational Program was well received by the MSBA staff and the MSBA Facilities Assessment Sub-committee. The MSBA subsequently recommended the Educational Program to be included on the MSBA website as an exemplary Educational Program for other Districts to reference. https://www.massschoolbuildings.org/sites/default/files/edit-contentfiles/Building_With_Us/Ed_Facilities_Planning/Nashoba_RHS_Educational_Program.pdf
The building design has continued to “challenge the traditional” and follow the Educational Program that was developed. The overall design concept of the new facility reflects a shift toward the creation of smaller, interdisciplinary learning communities, where teachers from a variety of subject areas, counselors, special educators, support staff and administrators are all present and in close proximity to one another relative to learning and support spaces. The Applied Arts spaces serve as a bridge between the learning communities and the public spaces of the school. This provides high visibility and activity to these core programs of the school. The school is being designed so that every space is a project space, not just a specifically dedicated space, further emphasizing the District’s focus on project-based learning. The new Nashoba Regional High School is currently completing the Schematic Design phase.