A committee consisting of administrators, representatives from academic departments and other Revere High School employees is visiting other high schools to provide input for the design of the new high school.

Superintendent Matthew Montgomery believes the visits will expose the committee to a variety of designs.

“We have heard recommendations from several different districts about things that they think we would benefit from seeing or visiting, innovative programming that they are using and implementing, and, based on those suggestions, we selected a few that we think would meet our needs. We are trying to get a diverse selection of buildings to visit to try to get snapshots of different styles to kind of figure out what would be appealing to us,” Montgomery said.

Revere High School librarian Cynthia Gobrogge appreciated the opportunity to view possibilities of design for the new buildings library and media center.

“I thought that it would be interesting to see what other schools are doing and what ideas we could incorporate into our building. As far as my role for our high school, the library is such a large component of any school building. I thought that it would be wise to be part of that committee, so that I could be able to make good decisions as far as what we could benefit from in our media center when we design a new space for our students and staff,” Gobrogge said.

Having graduated from Revere High School himself, Social Studies teacher Phil Heyn feels an attachment to the district and has gathered thoughts on possible designs.

“Having grown up here and gone to school here and now teaching here, I have a love for this school, and I just want to be part of the process of making the new school a reality. There are things that I would love to see different about the new school compared to our school as well as compared to the other schools out there,” Heyn said.

The committee, including superintendent Matthew Montgomery, would meet on several occasions to discuss elements of the schools they visit.

“The high school group had a debriefing meeting on the first sites that we have seen. We got together, and we created a list of what we really liked and what we did not see as a good fit. We shared those ideas, and we are collecting that data, so, as we make future visits, we are really compiling a list of what may be a good environment for the new Revere buildings,” Montgomery said.
Several elements of each building have attracted the attention of individuals in the group.

“In Streetsboro, they made their hallways learning environments, so, in every corner of the high school, they had a couch. They had a white board. They had stand-up desks, where students could come out of their classrooms and go work together collaboratively in the hallways, while classes were happening. I thought that was very appealing. I also like in Streetsboro how they had study rooms. There were small breakout rooms in addition to the hallways where students could leave their main classrooms and hop into a small study room that had a separate door, desks, whiteboards, and areas where they could collaborate. They had a theme around collaboration that I really like, where there are small spaces where students can go and do independent learning with a small section of your class to really work together and communicate and collaborate,” Montgomery said.

The visits serve as an influential component of the planning for the new building, which the district will build after the passage of Issue 45 in November.