When Nauset Regional High School students came back from winter break this year, the school building they returned to had undergone some big changes.
The two-part, $169 million renovation project is officially complete, according to Parker Mumford of the Provincetown Independent.
CAI's Gilda Geist spoke with Parker recently to learn more about the school's transformation.
Gilda Geist Take us all the way back to the beginning of this renovation project. What were the conditions at the school that prompted the renovation?
Parker Mumford So, in order to talk about what prompted the renovation, we kind of have to go all the way back to 1972 when the school was first built. All those years of foot traffic in the building kind of caused a lot of wear and tear on it. And not only that, the original school as designed in the 1970s had a lot of features that weren't really desirable in 2026. A lot of the classrooms had uninsulated concrete walls. There wasn't air conditioning in a lot them. There's really poor ventilation in the locker rooms underneath the gym, which sounds absolutely awful to me. There were more students who showed up in the 1990s and they used that as an excuse to build a new building [on] the school [campus]. But the building committee chair told me that was kind of a stopgap solution and it dealt with some of the increased enrollment, but it really didn't solve some of the wear and tear problems in the rest of the school. I remember going there in the 2010s. I remember that there were holes in some of the outer walls of the buildings that birds were living in. I remember the ceiling in the music room was actually kind of collapsing in some places and so as someone who has been in the old school, I think that the renovation project was really a long time coming.
GG When you were there in the 2010s, that was as a student?
PM Yeah, I was a student. I graduated in class of 2018.
GG We'll talk about the new version of the school building, but first I want to talk about the cost of this project. This was a nearly $170 million project. Who paid for it?
PM So it was actually paid for by taxpayers. They voted pretty enthusiastically at town meetings in 2021. And then again in 2023, when the lowest bid came in higher than was expected. It was a pretty expensive project, but my impression is that people in the four towns that Nauset serves really care about the kids and them having a good school.
GG And there was no Massachusetts School Building Authority funding for this one?
PM The MSBA funding was not as large of a proportion as a school building project would often get in Massachusetts, and there is a long list of factors that led to that. But there was MSBA funding, just not as much as we would be used to.
GG You toured the newly renovated school building. What was it like in there?
PM Yeah, so a photographer and I went on a tour of the building. We actually were joined by a bunch of other officials from various towns who were gathered at the school for a finance workshop. It was huge. It was very modern looking. It looked like a place I would be really happy to go to school in. It was also still recognizable as Nauset. When we went through the courtyard, I recognized, oh, there's that ramp that I used to run down, and this is the place where I used like bring my musical instrument to play in the courtyard during lunch. And some of the buildings are the same shape. Others have changed shape, but it's still definitely Nauset, if not just a little bit bigger and a lot more new looking.
GG What did Nauset Regional High School students think of the renovations?
PM So it's funny, I visited the school after hours, so there weren't too many students roaming around the halls. So, we actually enlisted the help of some students who are in a journalism program at the high school to ask their friends and acquaintances what they thought. And so, when you read the story, you'll see that there's a few little vignettes of students reacting to the new school. They seem to love it.
