Staples High School

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Staples High School
The seal of Staples High School.
Location
70 North Avenue
Westport, Connecticut 06880

United States
Information
Type Public secondary
Established 1884
School district Westport Public Schools
Principal John Dodig
Grades 9-12
Enrollment 1800
Color(s) Navy Blue and White
Mascot Construction worker named "the Wrecker"
Website

Staples High School is a public secondary school, located in the town of Westport, Connecticut, USA. Staples High School is named after Horace Staples who founded the school in 1884. The school was moved to its current location on North Avenue in 1958, and was recently expanded and renovated into an all-new facility.

For comparison purposes with similar schools, the state Department of Education classifies schools and communities in "District Reference Groups", defined as "districts whose students' families are similar in education, income, occupation and need, and that have roughly similar enrollment".[citation needed] Westport is one of eight school districts in District Reference Group A (others are Darien, Easton, New Canaan, Redding, Ridgefield, Weston, and Wilton).[1]

Contents

History

Staples High School was originally built in 1884 by Horace Staples, a high-wealth savvy trader, who built a three-story brick building on Riverside Avenue, just south of downtown Westport, Connecticut. The building contained several classrooms, a science laboratory, and a library. In 1937, a new wing opened up just north of the original building, containing many new classrooms but still no cafeteria or gymnasium (those were included in a 1947 expansion).

In 1958, to follow the expansion of the community, the school moved to a new site on North Avenue. This new facility contained a gymnasium, cafeteria and an auditorium, which was an impressive structure at the time. Its design was unique for the area, utilizing separate buildings with students walking outside between classes, creating an open atmosphere similar to a college campus.

However, the open air walkways between buildings were inconvenient in the Connecticut winters, forcing students to wear their coats to classrooms during much of the school year. There were also concerns raised about student safety from the open, almost college-like campus that allowed easy and unrestricted access to and from the school by both students and non-students. Most importantly, as time passed from the original 1958 construction, the athletic, laboratory, and other facilities of Staples fell increasingly behind the more modern schools being built by neighboring towns. To address these shortcomings a Modernization project was launched at the school between 1978 and 1981, the centerpiece of which was a large number of physical education facilities, such as a new Fieldhouse, Pool, and Library , as well as a series of enclosed corridors linking the buildings to protect students from the elements.

In 2003, several years of planning for yet another construction project at the school were completed and construction began on July 1 of that year on an $80 million project to renovate and expand the school into a brand-new facility. During this project, many of the original buildings were demolished as the new school was built on their original footings. The project was completed in September 2006.

Notable alumni

Awards and press coverage

Renovations and expansions

The first expansion project came in 1937, which included a two-story building with classrooms. It is what is now the front of Saugatuck Elementary School.

Ten years after that, another expansion was built, including a Cafeteria and Gymnasium.

When the school moved to North Avenue in 1958, it consisted of seven separate buildings labeled 1 through 8 (buildings 2 and 3 (Gym/Cafeteria) were together). In 1964, a two-story ninth building was constructed at the south end of the campus.

In 1974, heating pipe problems prompted a project to fix the system.

Modernization

From 1978 to 1981, the school was under a modernization project. It included the following construction:

2003 Renovation

Beginning on July 1, 2003 and officially ending on September 12, 2006 the campus was reconstructed. For the cost of $84 million, an entirely new 32,000 square meter (330,000 square foot) facility was built.

Footnotes

  1. ^ [1] Web page titled "Find a Community: By Educational Reference Group (DRG)" at the "Discovery 2007 / An initiative of the William Caspar Graustein Fund" Web site, accessed March 25, 2007

External links

Personal tools
Namespaces
Variants
Actions
Navigation
Interaction
Toolbox
Print/export