Model Schools Program

Model School Program

( Model School Program Video. Click the image to view)

Using proven, effective designs to create 21^st century educational environments

The MSBA has undertaken a pilot Model School Program to effectively adapt and re-use the designs of successful, recently constructed high schools. Model Schools will be efficient in design and will incorporate sustainable, “green” design elements when possible and will be flexible in educational programming spaces while encouraging community use. The MSBA Board, led by its Chairman, Treasurer Tim Cahill, will select the model on the basis of applications, site visits, interviews with school officials, and a review and audit of the already constructed Model School candidates.

The MSBA believes the adaptation of existing successful designs will have many benefits, including:

·         Delivering effective schools by capitalizing on proven solutions

·         Perpetuating cost-effective designs and best practices

·         Making the design process more efficient and enhancing design coordination

·         Compressing the design/bid schedule, reducing the impact and uncertainty of inflation on project costs

·         Limiting construction change orders

Model School Pilot Program update:

As Part of Phase I of the Model School Pilot Program, the MSBA Board approved the designation of Ashland High School and Whitman-Hanson High School as Model Schools. These two school designs were chosen from among 12 potential model schools that were submitted in response to an RFS issued by the MSBA. The MSBA has finalized a Project Scope and Budget Agreement with its first Model School community – Norwood – who has chosen to adapt and re-use the Whitman-Hanson High School designs for a new Norwood High School, with significant cost savings in both design and construction.  In addition, the MSBA is in discussions with its second Model School district – Hampden-Wilbraham Regional School District – to explore the possibility of identifying, adapting, and re-using a Model School design for a new Minnechaug Regional High School.

The MSBA recently issued an RFS for Phase II of its Model School Pilot Program. The Phase II RFS removed restrictions on design enrollments and gross square footages in an effort to capture a larger and more varied pool of potential model schools. In addition to soliciting new designs, the RFS also allowed designers who had submitted designs under Phase I to supplement their previous responses. The designers of Ashland and Whitman-Hanson were not asked to resubmit their responses and those designs retain the designation of “Model School.”  A total of eight designers submitted timely responses for 11 academic or comprehensive high schools.  The Phase II Model School candidates are:

• Flansburgh Architects
  • Lawrence High School
  • Ipswich High School
  • Auburn High School
• Design Partnership of Cambridge
  • Hopkinton High School
  • Medway High School
• DiNisco Design Partnership
  • North Andover High School
• Dore & Whittier Architects, Inc.
  • Littleton High School
• Mount Vernon Group
  • Chicopee Comprehensive High School
• Office of Michael Rosenfeld
  • Lincoln-Sudbury High School
• Symmes Maini & McKee Associates
  • Hudson High School
• Strekalovsky Architecture, Inc.
  • Clinton High School

Given the success of the Model School Pilot Program with Norwood, the MSBA Board voted at its January 28, 2009 meeting to invite the Town of Tewksbury into the Model School Pilot Program to explore, in collaboration with the MSBA, whether a model school might be an educationally appropriate school and size for the Town of Tewksbury. 

Benefits of using a proven design include incorporating successful elements of existing schools, confirmed by local students, teachers, administrators, and facilities maintenance personnel; perpetuating best practices for flexible, environmentally sustainable and easy to maintain school building design; and reducing likelihood of change orders, therefore improving cost control. Moreover, the use of Model School designs may lead to more reimbursement points for a district and local support from taxpayers may be more likely when stakeholders visit and walk through Model Schools which were effectively constructed on-time and on-budget.

The MSBA would like to invite you on a tour of the Whitman-Hanson Regional High School, chosen to be a Model School by the MSBA. Click the image to view the video.