Blythewood High School

Narratives

Blythewood High School

Background
Richland School District Two (RCSD2) is a progressive, nationally-recognized school district located in suburban Columbia, South Carolina. Serving approximately 21,500 students in 29 schools and centers, this fast-growing district is in the midst of an aggressive building campaign. The new school, the 4th high school in the district, is designed to serve 1,700 students with a core capacity to support 2,000.

With the world changing around them, RCSD2 realized a new model for high school facilities was needed — one that responded to best practices for student learning in the 21st century. As National High School Principal of the Year (2002) and [the school] Principal Dr. Sharon Buddin says, ‘[this school] was designed with a philosophy in mind; one centered on providing students with the skills they will need to succeed in a global society; this school is designed to be a true Breaking Ranks II high school.’

The Process
The Planning Architect created Facility Design Guidelines (Education Specifications) for [the school] through a highly collaborative, participatory process with the school district community. In addition to the planners and architects, the group included administrators, teachers, staff, students, board members, and community representatives. The four-workshop process which covered topics such as global economic and workforce trends, trends in education and how facilities respond, project examples, etc., was instrumental in arriving at the solution for the new high school.

Some of the key thoughts that resulted from the process and greatly informed the Facility Design Guidelines—and ultimately the final design of the high school—included desire for a facility that: promotes parent involvement and communication, provides ubiquitous and nomadic computing, facilitates community use, provides student gathering places and a collegiate atmosphere, promotes/supports a quality education program, promotes student excellence, provides resources and professional support, integrates technology, encourages independent thinking/critical problem solving skills, develops collaborative partnerships that will improve education, and reinforces learning as a life-long process

The Result — A New High School Campus
The Site
The school’s 140-acre site is geographically rich, with natural amenities such as a 10-acre lake, wetlands, and densely wooded areas. Goals for the site generated in the programming process included: Take advantage of great views; provide an exciting approach to school with clear front entry; provide appropriate vehicular separation; preserve/enhance the natural beauty of the site; provide areas for outdoor education; separate access to stadium; orient building for solar exposure; and plan wisely for future development. The design approach to site was to create a campus setting using the beautiful 10-acre lake as the focal point. Primary school functions and the district-wide stadium, therefore, are oriented to the lake. Outdoor facilities include a 6,000-seat football district-wide stadium and playfields for baseball, football, softball, tennis, and track & field.

Every element of the facility was carefully sited to preserve as much of the existing forest and wetlands as possible, while taking advantage of the views across the lake, the topography, the prevailing wind and solar orientations, and natural interactive opportunities afforded by the unique location.

The Building
Flanking a large centrally located lobby, the 294,000 gross square foot high school is broadly organized into a series of Small Learning Communities to the south and shared areas (Art, Wellness, Commons, Cyber [Media] Center, and Cyber Café) to the north. This zoning of the building allows for easy access to, and isolation of, shared facilities for after-hours and weekend use. In addition, the centrally located lobby, with flanking main administrative areas provides an

Breaking Ranks II

[The school] opened in the fall of 2005 as a model for Breaking Ranks II, Strategies for leading high school reform. In 2002, I was honored to represent Met -life and the National Association of Secondary Schools as the National Principal of the year, serving on the task force to critique the Breaking Ranks II publication. This also was the time we came together to plan the new school. I had no idea at the time that I would be selected to open this new facility.

We wanted to create a building flexible enough to handle the coming changes in education and to prepare students for the world of tomorrow. We wanted changes in our classrooms: lots of light, differentiated instruction, technology, furniture that could be rearranged constantly. We wanted spaces for large groups and small groups and the ability to use technology everywhere. It was the community that decided to have the building wrapped around the old Swygert Pond instead of facing the interstate. This provided a perfect setting for our campus as well as an outside classroom.

The academic wing is organized into 4 smaller learning communities in order to create a culture of personalization. Each wing, or house as we call it, has approximately 300 students in the house. Think of Harry Potter and his sorting hat. We sorted students into 4 equal groups balanced with ability, diversity and economic levels. Each house has an area to accommodate an administrator, guidance counselor and a lead teacher. We used the background of Rick Dufour’s former school, Adalai Stevens High School, and his many publications to set up safety nets for our 9th graders and to teach responsibility for students to move toward graduation.

Each student is able to select a career cluster and major. This is extremely important in South Carolina with the passage of the 2005 Economic and Development Act. The area along the back of each house combines Science with Career and Technology courses, offering students an integrated course of study. Thus, students denote relevance and make connections with their career major.

The arts and the wellness areas are on the other side of the building, allowing those areas to be open for night and community events without opening the entire building. The center of the building, ‘the atrium,’ has been the area that we have used to feature the arts during many of our lunch periods. The large gym is not only used for athletics but is also used to host our entire student body assemblies.

The other focus of the building is the ability to use technology everywhere. We invested in many laptops for students to use in class or in the cyber café. Each core classroom has a SMART Board and teachers and students are using the technology both in class and through Blackboard.com or other web sites to access assignments. BHS also offers courses through distance learning and virtual classes.

BHS School has been fortunate to be part of a Smaller Learning community Grant where we are doing research on our success with smaller learning communities, literacy and civic engagement. We are a High School That Works Site and an Arts in the Basic Education Site. We were selected by University of South Carolina to be a Professional Development School, and currently we are in an articulation process with our engineering program to partner with both Midland Technical college e and University of South Carolina with our engineering program.

In the opening of Breaking Ranks II, Ted Sizer states, ‘Good enough for yesterday will not serve as good enough for tomorrow-in every community, rich and poor, across the country.’ We feel that BHS has the flexibility to be good now and to keep changing to make us better for tomorrow. Our building and educational philosophy gives us that capability.