Greater Commonwealth Virtual School Prepares to Launch Hadley Support Center for Middle and High School Students

For immediate release

Center Would Provide In-Person Option to Supplement Virtual Learning

GREENFIELD — Special Education Director Darlene Thorpe is pleased to announce that the Greater Commonwealth Virtual School will soon be opening an in-person satellite location for students in need of additional support and instruction.

The Hadley Support Center will be the school’s new brick and mortar location, designed to meet additional needs of students beyond the exclusively virtual model. It will be located at 1 Mill Valley Road in Hadley.

This will be a full-time in-person learning center for GCVS students. The school had a one-year pilot program for a satellite support center in Leydon prior to the pandemic, but the space wasn’t optimal for the school’s needs and the location wasn’t central enough given student demographics. When a location in Hadley became available for lease in March of 2020 the school acted quickly to secure it.  

The pandemic put plans for the new support center on hold temporarily, and the past few years have been spent planning and coordinating the new space.

“We worked hard to find a location that would meet our needs and the needs of students, and we couldn’t be happier with this space,” Director Thorpe said. “It’s very close to the highway, and the proximity to the Five Colleges will make it easier to work with potential college interns in the future.” 

Like the original Leydon location, the Hadley Support Center will be a place for students with special needs or on Individualized Education Programs (IEP’s), but will also be for those students who may just need an additional boost.

“The center is for any student who may need help with their growth,” Director Thorpe said. “There is no one singular type of student who will benefit from this space. We envision it meeting the needs of a diverse group of students, and because of that we are making sure it is multi-purpose and can grow along with our school as we increase enrollment and look to serve an even wider range of students.” 

The center will offer a blended approach, where students will still take their virtual classes but also receive additional assistance as needed. 

‘A Welcoming Space’

The Leydon support center was not only too small, but it was also dark and did not meet the needs of a modern classroom setting. By contrast, the Hadley location will provide plenty of natural light and a much more suitable learning environment. It will consist of a large open central room with multiple office spaces for staff and private lessons. 

Once operational, the center will host daily morning meetings where students and staff can discuss the day’s lessons but also engage in mindfulness exercises. Breakfast and lunch will also be served, as the goal is to feed both the spirit and the body of students so that it is easier to feed their minds. 

The center will additionally promote mindfulness exercises, healthy living and self discipline, with the ultimate goal of helping students become better advocates for themselves. Life skills, such as creating a budget and managing finances, will also be taught in addition to traditional classroom education.

“We hope to make the space very inviting, as it’s just as important for students to feel welcome and secure physically and emotionally as it is to have a place where they can learn,” said Hadley Support Center Coordinator Kris Provost. “The goal is for students to make the space their own. A lot of what we are trying to accomplish is to get students to take ownership of the space, as part of them ultimately taking ownership of their overall education. This will allow them to understand what it is they need to do to achieve their goals in life, no matter what those goals may be.”

In addition to providing in-person instruction for students when needed, the center will also offer the ability to stream classes virtually to those in a remote setting, hold events such as job fairs and career days, host guest speakers, allow access to additional professional development and training for staff, and serve as a place where teachers can do projects and presentations that would otherwise not be possible remotely.

Eligibility

GCVS plans to launch the center sometime next month. It will be available for any middle school or high school student currently enrolled in GCVS. The center will alternate days so that middle and high school students are not in the building at the same time, having each grade level in the center two days per week. 

Any student who is within a reasonable commutable distance will be eligible, and busing will be available. 

GCVS staff has been reaching out to families of students to encourage enrollment in the center (and in many cases, working with the students directly), and any other student or family wishing to learn more is encouraged to inquire. 

The goal is to cap the number of students using the space at any given time to approximately 12-15 middle school students and 12-15 high school students. 

“We have spoken to many students and their families about what this new space will offer, and there has been a genuine interest and curiosity,” Coordinator Provost said. “We have spent years learning what works and what doesn’t in terms of virtual education, and having this in-person space available to us will serve to supplement what we provide and what students are able to get out of their GCVS education. We are all very excited to launch this new center and start a new chapter for our school.”

For more information about the Hadley Support Center, call GCVS 413-475-3879 or email Kris Provost at kprovost@gcvs.org.

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