Wayland High School

Wayland High School
Location
Wayland, Massachusetts, U.S.
Information
Type	Public
Religious affiliation(s)	None
Principal	Patrick Tutwiler
Enrollment	870
Color(s)	Orange and black
Mascot	Warriors
Website	Wayland High School

Wayland High School is a secondary school located at 264 Old Connecticut Path in Wayland, Massachusetts, U.S. Its principal is Patrick Tutwiler. As of the 2011-2012 school year, there are 870 students, under its designed operating capacity of 950. In 2009, Wayland voters approved a new, $70.8 million, three-building campus that replaced the old one. Construction of the new school was completed at the end of November 2011, and occupancy by the student body began January 3, 2012. In February 2012, with the exception of the Field House, the original high school buildings were demolished.

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 an education for their children that was parallel to their own experiences. 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 the town take action, 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 Wayland-Weston Town Crier, he said, "Because of spiraling 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.

Architecture and construction

Wayland High School's old 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 old 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 900 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 a separating membrane. They then jacked up the roofs.

Structure

When the old 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 (and still is) 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. With each square foot of the school costing $12.40, Wayland managed to complete its old 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 advanced 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.

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 (a "department head") who organized lessons and led 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.

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."

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.

Academics

Wayland High School logo.

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. While students are under pressure to do well, Wayland students are not particularly competitive with one another. Many students are highly self-motivated and push themselves to excel. The Advanced Placement classes are always full and students have intelligent and varied conversations in and out of the classroom.

Wayland also is known to have an excellent theatre program, producing three seasons of theatre each year. Students can earn varsity jackets in performing arts 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.

Every year since 2001, Honors US history students have researched and contributed to the Wayland High School History Project, a five-volume digital archive that examines how 20th century trends and developments played out in the community.

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 Amherst, Boston College, George Washington University, Brown University, Brandeis University, Harvard University, Syracuse University, University of Vermont, and Boston University.

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 collaborations with athletic rival Weston High School, including the Wayland-Weston crew team and the girls' hockey team. The Wayland-Weston Crew team is currently ranked as the #2 high school crew team in the nation.

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 ("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 been to the playoffs. It is the first Super Bowl win for Wayland. 2006 graduate and All-State quarterback Alex Jenny holds virtually every game, season and career passing record in Wayland football history, including 47 career touchdown passes and 4,679 career yards passing.

Wayland Wrestling has a fine winning tradition with over 30 league championships and multiple state championships, the most recent in 2010. Most of the championships were led by legendary Coach Moyer, and most recently Coach Gary Chase (Wayland alum). Chase's son, Sean took over the team in 2008. Joe Manley holds records for most pins in a career (80), as well as most pins in a season (35). Mike Testa holds the record for most wins in a season (43) and in 2008 passed Manley's mark of 121 wins to become the career leader. Jarad Doyon is third in career wins (117) and Wayland's only four-time state place winner.

Wayland Lacrosse won the 2007 DCL championship, led by Head Coach Tom Cavanaugh, who was awarded his second career Massachusetts coach of the year honor, in addition to garnering his 6th DCL coach of the year award.

Wayland Swimming and Diving has been highly competitive under Coach Mike Foley and Keith Meliones winning many league, sectional, and state championships. In 2009 and 2010, both the boys and the girls won Div. II State titles, becoming the first school in Massachusetts history to win championships in the same year (2009). The 2009 victory was the boys first ever state title, and for the girls it was their 4th consecutive state championship and 5th overall (1973, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009).

New high school

In 2004 and 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 from 1990 to 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.

In 2007, the High School building Committee once again began pursuing a high school project. With the promise of the State of Massachusetts reimbursing 40% of the cost of a project, Wayland developed a proposal (all new construction with renovated field house) that meet the guidelines in accordance with the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA). On November 17, 2009, voters overwhelmingly approved the high school project (70% in favor), and again at Town Meeting the following night (1481 in favor, 95 opposed). Construction on the new school began on June 22, 2010. The switch between the old high school and the new one occurred on January 3, 2012. By the end of the day on February 23, 2012, the entire old campus had been demolished.

Trivia

• In November 1973, Aerosmith played a concert at Wayland High School. Tom Hamilton, the band's bass player, is a graduate of one of the elementary schools in town (Claypit Hill) -- he moved to the neighboring town of Weston after elementary school and graduated from Weston High School.
• In the 1990s, Wayland's boys' indoor track team had a record of 62-0, and went eight years without losing a DCL meet.
• The new high school cost about $70,800,000, with 40% of the cost covered by the State of Massachusetts^{[citation needed]}
• With the exception of the Field House, the entire original campus has been razed, and new parking lots will be built in its place.

Notable alumni

• Samuel Adams Wisner, class of 2006, rapper
• Harley Yanoff (stage name Harley Harrison), class of 2004, actor (movie Don McKay)[2]
• Daniel Bowhers, class of 2002, co-owner Picture Planet studios/movie director (movie This is Don [3])
• Taylor Schilling, class of 2002, actress (TV series Mercy)
• Ryan Sypek, class of 2000, actor (TV series Wildfire)
• Justin Lerner, class of 1998, film director / writer (2010 feature film Girlfriend)
• Evan Sneider, class of 1998, film actor (2010 feature film Girlfriend)
• Sarah Hurwitz, class of 1995, speechwriter to Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
• Gary Gray, host and producer of the Playboy TV series The Helmetcam Show
• Gregg Kavet, writer and co-executive producer, Seinfeld
• Scott Levin, class of 1981, Television news anchor for WGRZ Buffalo, NY (NBC Affiliate)
• Alberto Salazar, class of 1976, winner of the Boston Marathon and three-time winner of the New York City Marathon
• Elliott Francis, class of 1971, Television/Radio news anchor (CNN, FOX, NPR)
• David Lipton, class of 1971 - First Deputy Managing Director (second-in-command), International Monetary Fund (2011–); United States National Economic Council (2009–11); United States National Security Council (2009–11); former Undersecretary for International Affairs, Treasury
• Craig Thompson, class of 1971, noted cancer researcher and President/CEO of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
• Douglas Jabs, class of 1969, an expert in clinical research in the fields of ophthalmology and uveitis

External links

• Wayland High School