Add as a preferred source on Google

New Arizona High School Follows Academy Model

  • By Dian Schaffhauser
  • 07/18/19

A high school scheduled to open this month near Phoenix in Arizona is following what it's calling an "academy-based, career-pathway focused education." Eastmark High School, part of the Queen Creek Unified School District in Mesa, will feature next-generation educational spaces as well as athletic and arts programs.

The campus is being built with a combination of voter-approved bond funds and state school facilities funding. Phase-1 of the project is 154,000 square feet with a capacity for about 1,350 students. The site is master planned for future phases to increase capacity to 2,700 to 2,800 students. The future spaces will accommodate an auxiliary gym, additional learning spaces, a performing and arts space and an auditorium.

The project broke ground in March 2018 on a 60-acre site. Orcutt | Winslow designed the high school, which is being built by Core Construction. According to local media coverage, the construction company used virtual reality technology to enable stakeholders to see what the new school would look like.

Students will attend classes within one of four distinct academies: STEM, medical and social health, business and marketing, and fine arts.

What's unique is that each academy will have its own space, which mimics what students would experience in the real world. As Principal Paul Gagnon explained in a video, the business and marketing students will be able to run a student store where they'll be able to market their materials. The fine arts students will work in an environment set up like a film and TV studio. The medical students will study in a space that mimics a hospital setting. And the STEM students will be "in an engineering lab where they can build things just like they would in any robotics-type setting."

As the academies grow, each will have dedicated specialists to serve as guidance counselors. Currently, the school is also seeking professional partnerships "so that our students can truly learn from the people that are doing the work out in the field and have access to that knowledge to make them more successful and more prepared for the future," said Gagnon.

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.

Featured

  • University of Kansas Opens $400M Football Stadium Reconstruction

    The University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kan., recently announced that the $400-million reconstruction of David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium is complete in time for the 2025 football season, according to a news release. The university partnered with Turner Construction Company on the project.

  • Extron, CENTEGIX Partner for Comprehensive School Security Solution

    Professional audiovisual solutions provider Extron recently announced a partnership with CENTEGIX, which provides rapid incident response technology, to integrate two of their top products in the name of school safety.

  • South Texas K–12 District Debuts Region’s First Electric Bus Fleet

    The Valley View Independent School District in Pharr, Texas, recently announced a partnership with Highland Electric Fleets to launch the district’s—and the region’s—first fleet of all-electric school buses, according to a news release.

  • How One School Reimagined Learning Spaces—and What Others Can Learn

    When Collegedale Academy, a PreK–8 school outside Chattanooga, Tenn., needed a new elementary building, we faced the choice that many school leaders eventually confront: repair an aging facility or reimagine what learning spaces could be. Our historic elementary school held decades of memories for families, including some who had once walked its halls as children themselves. But years of wear and the need for costly repairs made it clear that investing in the old building would only patch the problems rather than solve them.

Digital Edition