After originally hoping to open Watertown’s state-of-the-art new high school after spring break, Watertown Superintendent Dede Galdston said that the school will not host classes until the fall of 2026.
The new school being built on the site of the old high school will be the first in the country to be net zero energy, meaning it will produce all the power needed to run the school, and meet the LEED Platinum green building standards. It will also have a new gym, auditorium, space for vocational programs such as engineering, childcare, carpentry, and potentially a culinary program.
Galdston told the School Committee on Jan. 12 that the project will be close to finishing before the end of the 2025-26 school year, but not quite ready.
“We now are very firm on the fact that we will open the high school in September, which is perfectly excellent — sorry, seniors,” Galdston said. “That being said, it’s actually really close, unfortunately. We’re probably a month off, but it doesn’t matter, because that pushes us into the summer, which then pushes us for an opening in September.”
The high school will be the fourth school in Watertown to open in the last several years, and Galdston said she has learned from the previous building projects.
“I would say that, as a person who has now opened three schools and now this is the fourth, I would rather move in when the building is ready, than to move in when it is partially or almost ready,” Galdston said.
City Council President and School Committee member Mark Sideris said it is tough to run a school when it is almost finished.
“We did this with the Lowell School, and we had construction ongoing for months and months afterwards,” Sideris said. “Looking back, we probably should have kept the students a little bit longer at St. Jude (School).”
Sideris, who is chair of the School Building Committee, said he recently toured the new high school.
“We’ve made significant progress, really, really every month it continues to improve, but it just doesn’t look like it’s going to be 100 percent ready,” Sideris said.
While the seniors will not have a chance to attend classes in the new school, Galdston said there could be opportunities for them to see the new building.
“We are looking forward to offering some opportunities for the seniors to be able to participate in the building prior to their actual graduation, or maybe even graduate there,” Galdston said.
With the move over the summer, teachers and staff will be able to pack up their classrooms at the Moxley campus and move it over to the new school in June.
“Then they’ll have all summer if they want to come in and set up, and then we’ll have some a little bit of time at the beginning of the year as well to get things rolling before we welcome our students in September,” Galdston said.
The modulars that make up the temporary high school will remain at Moxley. The City recently agreed to purchase them to use as swing space when Watertown Middle School is renovated/expanded or rebuilt. Sideris said the owner’s project management firm for the high school project, Vertex, and the architect, Ai3, are working to finalize a contract to work with Watertown officials to begin the design of the new middle school, “which was requested by the City Council to get a better cost analysis of what that could be.”