Future Vision of Our School Facilities

Dear Members of the North Kingstown School Community - 

As your new Superintendent of Schools I would like to share with you why we are proposing renovations to our school facilities and the design of a new consolidated middle school. From the day I became your Superintendent one of my focuses has been on the vision and future of the North Kingstown Schools. Part of this vision is to ensure that we maintain and improve our school facilities to provide safe, healthy, and innovative learning environments for our students and educators. Our school facilities should also be a resource to ALL of the members of our North Kingstown community. Investing in our children’s education and the facilities that provide them their learning spaces is an investment for all of us. I believe that our school facilities should be the focal point of our community, a resource for residents to use for town events, recreational activities, and school and town wide performances. Renovating our schools and designing a new middle school will benefit our entire North Kingstown Community. 

Vision of NK School Facilities: 

It has been recommended to the School Building Sub-Committee and the School Committee that the requested bond of $167 million should be allocated for the design and construction of a new consolidated 6-8 middle school as well as prioritizing needs across our schools to complete the necessary renovations. It is my recommendation that our Stage II application to the School Building Authority include both a new middle school and needed renovations to other North Kingstown school facilities. 

It is the goal of the North Kingstown School Department to provide a high quality, rigorous, and innovative education to our students in healthy, secure, and safe facilities that positively impact and support 21st Century teaching and learning. We aspire to provide learning environments for our students that are engaging, promote sustainability initiatives, and opportunities to learn through their surroundings to become global change agents. 

It is our vision to design facilities that support educators and students to thrive in 21st 

century learning environments that provide opportunities for students to not only learn 

from the instruction provided by their teachers, but also from the design and systems that we create within the school building. Our students should be change-agents, constantly learning and challenging themselves about how they can make their community a better place. There is no better way than to design a building that promotes sustainability, netzero energy use, and an environment that promotes positive health and wellness. These systems will go beyond academic programming, they are a beacon to create greater awareness and understanding of stewardship to improve our global environment.

Why Design a New Middle School?

One consolidated middle school will provide a state of the art facility with a healthy, high performance learning environment.

• The systems and mechanics of the buildings are at the end of useful life
• Aged heating and ventilation systems
• Low performing building structure and systems
• Limited electrical and technical infrastructure for building management control
• Worn and damaged finishes throughout the building
• Limited air-conditioning which impacts student learning
• Security upgrades to ensure the safety of students and staff 
• Facilities do not meet 21st Century Learning expectations that support innovation, wellness and healthy habits to support the success of students, teachers and administrators.
• Inadequate flexible instructional spaces of different sizes to support student learning
• Inadequate spaces for STEM/Technology instruction
• Learning spaces lack flexibility and ability to encourage collaboration across content areas
• Lack of current acoustic design standards
• Spaces with limited or no natural light
• Inadequate storage, resulting in cluttering
• Inadequate Health/Nurse’s suite
• No dedicated auditorium and performance area
• Accessibility challenges
• A new Auditorium, with a performance space can support Town wide events.
• A new gymnasium and new athletic fields will improve the athletic program.