NEW LONDON, N.H. — To provide residents with vital information about the Kearsarge Regional High School building project, Superintendent Winfried Feneberg and the Kearsarge Regional School District will share details through the District’s spotlight series.
Each week, SAU 65 will delve into topics surrounding the proposed construction and renovation of the High School STEAM Wing. In this feature story, Superintendent Feneberg and Assistant Superintendent Michael Bessette share how STEAM programs provide a well-rounded education that prepares students for the future.
Superintendent Feneberg and Assistant Superintendent Bessette discuss the value of a STEAM-based education in this video.
“Sometimes people feel that STEAM programs interact only with those kids who are heading off to the trades, or destined to impact those who are heading off to college,” Assistant Superintendent Bessette said. “This is an education redesign, designed to have as much benefit for a student on a pathway to Harvard or Yale, or to the military, or a career path outside of a four-year college education.”
Kearsarge Regional High School opened in 1970, and is not designed to provide a multi-disciplinary 21st century education, or allow students work collaboratively and across disciplines.
Superintendent Feneberg states that the new STEAM wing will fit in with the District’s educational vision and strategic plan, and help meet the goals of providing project-based and competency-based learning.
“We want to give our kids a chance in the modern world,” Superintendent Feneberg said. “To allow them to pursue their interests, and pursue their careers after school in the best possible way to pursue career and college.
“There is huge potential in providing learning that is meaningful. It’s not about book learning; it’s about learning kids can use throughout their lives,” he said.
About the STEAM Wing project
Voters is all seven Kearsarge sending communities — Bradford, Newbury, New London, Sutton, Springfield, Warner, and Wilmot — will be asked to approve the building project in March.
The proposed renovation and construction project will update parts of original classroom spaces, which are now more than 50 years old, to make them suitable for career technical education, robotics, and applied arts uses.
Additionally, the new construction would support learning and career pathways in STEAM (science, technology, engineering, applied arts and mathematics) fields, create physical learning spaces for 21st-century education and expand skills development for students not electing to pursue post-secondary degrees. A new green room for the school’s television and media programs would also be included.
The proposed new construction at the high school would include creating a new robotics lab, storage and classroom space, an expanded culinary learning space, modern manufacturing education options, updated spaces for the theater program and additional art classroom space — among other upgrades.
The renovation would also include reconfiguring and updating the existing library space, creating cross-discipline project-based learning opportunities, updating locker rooms, upgrading mechanical systems, and replacing the roof and rearranging existing facilities to improve working and learning conditions.
The project would cost $22,270,000 and would be funded via a 20-year bond. Taxpayers in all seven Kearsarge communities will share the cost.
For more information about the project, click here.
