Wayland High School

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wayland High School
Location
Wayland, Massachusetts, MA, USA
Information
Religion None
Principal Patrick Tutwiler
Enrollment

920
Type Public
Mascot The Warriors
Color(s) Orange/Black
Established 1960
Homepage Wayland High School

Student Publication Site = Wayland Student Press

Online Broadcasting Site = WSPN.tv

Wayland High School is a secondary school located at 264 Old Connecticut Path, in Wayland, MA; its principal is Patrick Tutwiler The style of the high school was inspired by college campuses: there are 8 separate buildings, each dedicated to one or more general areas of study. Construction of the school was finished in 1960. As of 2006 there were 920 students, slightly above its designed operating capacity of 900.[citation needed]

Contents

[edit] History

In the 1950s, Wayland, like many other suburban towns, had grown a great deal in terms of population. With this new wave of residents came many well-educated individuals: doctors, lawyers, businessmen, who wanted as good of an education for their children as they had had in their younger years. This factor, combined with the high school's lack of space to accommodate the large number of students and the insistence from the School Building Committee that it was necessary that the town take action[1], led to the construction of the new school.

In his 1957 annual report, superintendent Edward J. Anderson cited Sputnik as the reason why math and science were receiving more attention in the U.S.

Anderson also pressed for the town to pay more taxes for the school's construction. In a letter from The Town Crier, he said, "Because of spiralling costs, all we're doing now educationally is holding our own and hanging on to what we have. At this rate we're not going to make any dramatic improvements. And yet, the taxes we pay for our schools are certainly high enough."

The Town Crier added,

“ Fundamental to the problem is the relative values we place on education as contracted to material possessions. We each spend at least $1000 a year on our car, but only $340 annually for the education of each child in Town. We are quite content to allow billions to be sunk in TV and advertising, and our tax structure provides for this kind of spending. Yet if education is as important as we say, we better find some way to give it the real financial support it needs." ”

Cambridge Consultants, Inc. of Boston, Educational Consultants, were hired to help the town determine what educational changes and structural changes were needed to make the new high school better than the last.

[edit] Architecture and Construction

Wayland High School's open campus was designed by Herbert Gallagher and John "Chip" Harkness of The Architects' Collaborative; the two were assisted by the renowned architect Walter Gropius. The School Building Committee interviewed 10 architectural firms before finally making its decision.

Construction was carried out by the N.D.C. Construction Company Inc., headed by James Cazanas, who was a resident of Wayland. Another construction company, Post Products, Inc., headed by J.O. Post, provided the acoustical tiles for the school. The groundbreaking ceremony was held on April 25, 1959.

Said Cazanas of the project in The Town Crier, "I was very much upset when I saw the plans for the new High School...The plans, for a series of single story buildings, seemed to contradict all the usual rules of economic construction. On top of this, a circular field house: circular, on both horizontal and vertical planes."

Despite his surprise of the High School's structure, Cazanas was confident of the school's innovation: "There won't be another school anywhere around like this one...There is so much there to interest everyone that it will be a center of activities in Wayland as well as a High School." He even claimed, "This site is a contractor's dream. I don't expect to see another like it."

The Town Crier even noted how the project was the "cheapest per square foot building his company [had] built since the war."

The High School was expected to accommodate 800 students and be able to expand to address the needs of as many as 1200 students.

Interestingly enough, the constructors first poured the concrete for the floors and then the roofs on top afterwards, separating the two with separating membrane. They then jacked up the roofs.

[edit] Structure

When the new high school opened in the fall of 1960, it was hailed for its innovative design. The school consisted of six buildings, five of which were academic centers for math and science, social studies and business, English and language, arts, and physical education. The last building housed the cafeteria, administrative offices, and the guidance office.

There were many aspects of the architecture of the campus that were especially fascinating to the public. For one, the physical education building, or the field house, was a circular structure with a domed roof. Inside, the field house was furnished with a basketball court and dirt track. On the sides were areas separated by walls for weight lifting, wrestling, and other such activities. The field house, with its collapsible bleachers, could easily be converted to accommodate school assemblies or town meetings and was used for these purposes.

In addition to the field house, there were three large lecture rooms at Wayland High School which were tiered in the style of amphitheaters.

The idea of a campus for the high school helped to cut down on costs; corridor space was reduced from 15% to 7% of the total building area since the "hallways" were now outdoors[2]. With each square foot of the school costing $12.40, Wayland managed to complete its present high school for about $2,300,000. Construction, including architectural fees, equipment, and furnishings, came to $1,754,187, around $45,000 less than expected. The money saved allowed the school to install playing fields; otherwise, the town would have had to construct the fields itself through grading and seeding.

The costs saved can be attributed to the advance thinking on the part of the architects and the chairman of the School Building Committee, Allan R. Finlay. The materials used and the structure of the school helped the town use its money more effectively.

The reason why most of the school has only one story is because a study in Connecticut found that schools with 800 or less students were more efficient with only one level.

[edit] Educational System

While it awaited the completion of the new school, the town began to implement the system of team teaching in 1959, the year preceding the new high school's opening. It became one of the first schools nationwide to do so. The team teaching system grouped teachers according to area of academics. Each group was led by a team leader who organized lessons and lead the other teachers, which eased the work of the superintendent, who simply contacted these team leaders to learn what was going on in each department. Before this change was integrated into the education system, teachers were assigned rooms and did not have much contact with their colleagues. With this new system, they were able to better interact with one another and organize themselves more effectively and efficiently.

The change in educational system of Wayland High School was just as significant as that of the architecture. In addition to the team-teaching system, the school now attempted to individualize the students' learning.

While students previously had been assigned to classes according to a loose evaluation of their abilities, a new system of large, medium, and small sized classes provided a means for students to learn at their own pace. In a large class, a teacher, typically the most skilled in the department, would teach a large group of students the basic facts and fundamental ideas in a topic. With this foundation of knowledge, students would attend medium-sized classes of around 8-15 students to discuss in detail what was taught in the large class. The teacher guiding the discussions would be one skilled in attending to each student's progress in learning. Finally, small sized classes consisted of one or two students and allowed for more specific and individual questioning with a teacher. Classroom sizes mimicked this system.

Additionally, each student was assigned a teacher who would guide them throughout their years in high school.

The aim of this new high school was to produce students who were self-propelled and independent enough that they would seek answers for themselves out of an interest of learning.[3]

Although the advent of Sputnik focused the nation on math and science, Wayland did not forget the importance of the humanities. The December 12, 1957 edition of The Town Crier noted, "Anderson said that in any school system the humanities must continue to hold equal status with the sciences, because our children must be well grounded in both if they are to furnish the leaders of tomorrow."

[edit] Achievement in the Papers

Wayland High School received an enormous amount of attention from the press. Featured in Life magazine, Time magazine, The Architectural Forum, The New York Times, and The Boston Globe, it was identified as a leader of the advancement of education.

In 1987, the town received the Red Book Award for its excellent educational system.

[edit] Changes up until Today

While the school today still looks much as it did fifty years ago, there have been many changes. Through the years, town has added a media center (1972), a math and English building, and modules to adjust to the school population. The dirt track has been paved over. The amphitheater behind the arts building, which was only used twice, has disappeared, and the offshoots of the library in academic buildings along with two of the lecture halls have also vanished due to inconvenience. The school has also gone through renovations, including ones that filled in two of the amphitheater lecture halls with concrete. The present science building's LRT section is the site of the old science-math amphitheater. The large, medium, and small sized classes have been replaced by medium sized classes throughout most of the school. Yet it still is departmentalized, and the variety of classroom sizes hasn't changed. Wayland High School still retains its reputation for its quality education.

[edit] Academics

Academically, Wayland High School is an excellent school: the New England Association for Schools and Colleges Accreditation (NEASC) wrote a report about the learning atmosphere at Wayland High and said, among other things:

Wayland High School logo.

Wayland High School is an excellent high school that has set a high standard for the learning of its students, collectively and individually. Of particular note is the deeply rooted commitment to exceptionally high academic expectations at Wayland High School and the commitment to making high achievement accessible to all students. The school is a positive and safe learning environment where safety measures are appropriately balanced with the need to have students assume increasingly expanded responsibility for their own decisions and behavior, contingent on their maturity and individual records of positive choices. The friendliness and openness of students in communicating with teachers, administrators, staff, other students, and with the visiting team, speaks eloquently to their appreciation for the opportunities they have at Wayland High School to grow as contributing citizens who are developing not only in intellect but also in character.

This academic environment is one of the main reasons the student body of Wayland High School is growing so rapidly: parents in the area want their children to have the opportunity to be taught in one of the best public schools in the state.

Wayland also is known to have an excellent theatre program, producing three seasons of theatre each year. Students can earn varsity jackets in performance art as well as in athletics.

As well as a chorus and concert choir, Wayland High School is home to three a cappella groups, a mixed gender group, called the Madrigals, an all male group, The Testostertones (T-Tones), and an all female group, The Muses.

Robert Anastas, a Wayland High School hockey coach, founded SADD at Wayland High School in 1981. Anastas founded the organization with his students after two Wayland High School hockey players were killed in separate car crashes.

Almost all WHS graduates attend a 2 or 4-year college; the percentage of college-bound graduates is upwards of 95%. Among the most popular colleges attended by graduates in recent years are University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Boston College, George Washington University, Brown University, Castleton State College, Harvard University, Syracuse University, University of Vermont, and Boston University.

[edit] Athletics

The athletics of the school are defined by the "Wayland Warriors," whose symbol is a flint spear with a feather tassel. Amongst the various sports are also collaborations with athletic rival Weston High School, including the Wayland-Weston crew team and a Wayland-Weston girls' hockey team. In 2006, led by coach Scott Parseghian, and Division 1-A player of the year, Quarterback Ben Sherry, Wayland won the Division 1A State Championship (AKA "The Super Bowl") in football. The team completed this by beating Marshfield High School, 28-0. It was the first time in 31 years that Wayland had even been to the playoffs. It is the first Super Bowl win for Wayland. 2006 graduate Alex Jenny holds most of the passing records in Wayland football history. Wayland Wrestling has a fine winning tradition with over 30 league championships and multiple state championships, the most recent in 2006. Most of the championships were led by legendary Coach Moyer, and most recently Coach Gary Chase (Wayland alum). Joe Manley holds both the career wins (121) and pins (80) records, as well as most pins in a season (35). Jarad Doyon is second in career wins (117) and Wayland's only 4-time state place winner. Mike Testa holds the record for most wins in a season (43). Wayland Swimming, another prominent sport at Wayland, are currently three time defending state champions on the girls side. Priscilla Wright holds the most points total (1160), while Jen Sung comes in second with 1156 points. Emily Wright was the 2008 All-Scholastic for the Globe in the 50 yard freestyle; she also has the fastest time in the state. In 2008, the Wayland Girls Swimming and Diving were undefeated (13-0), won the DCL, North Sectional, and Division 2 State Championships. Wayland Lacrosse recently won the 2007 DCL championship, led by Head Coach Tom Cavanaugh. who was awarded his 2nd career Massachusetts coach of the year honor, in addition to garnering his 6th DCL coach of the year award. The Wayland-Weston Crew team is currently ranked as the #2 High school crew team in the nation.

[edit] New High School

In 2004-2005 the Wayland School Committee and Superintendent Gary Burton tried to secure funding for a new high school. A special election ballot proposing additional funds for the project was rejected by Wayland voters in January 2005, by a margin of 2645 to 2005,[1] but passed in a later meeting when a larger majority of the town was made aware it was up for a vote. Those in favor of a new high school claim that the student body is continuing to grow and will soon be too large for the existing buildings, as evidenced by the modular classrooms already in use. This claim is countered by those opposing the new school who say that the argument runs contrary to publicly available enrollment figures for all grades which indicated that the largest years were students born 1990-1992. Some hold that if the proposal for a new school had been initiated in time to be ready for these students it might have been looked on more favorably. Though 70.8% of Wayland residents do not have children in the public school system, a survey conducted by the High School Building Committee in June 2005 found that 64.5% of respondents thought that the current high school facilities were inadequate, but 68.2% thought that the overall proposed price ($57 million) of building a new high school was too high.

[edit] Online Spirit Shop

Wayland High School has its own Online Spirit Shop where the community can design and buy Wayland High School t-shirts, sweatshirts and much more.

[edit] Trivia

  • In November 1973, Aerosmith played a concert at Wayland High School. Tom Hamilton, the band's bass player, is a graduate of the school.
  • In the 1990s, Wayland's boys' indoor track team was very good within the Dual County League (DCL). The team had a record of 62-0, and went eight years without losing a DCL meet.

[edit] Notable Alumni

[edit] External links