HOLYOKE — Camilia Garcia remembers thinking that the school her daughter attended not long ago, the now-demolished William R. Peck Middle School, felt like a “jail.”
But on Tuesday night Garcia found herself joining other parents and city and state officials touring a new $85.5 million school — the home of the Phoenix, the school’s new mascot — that officially replaced the old and decrepit relic from the 1970s.
“Now it’s so beautiful. The light of the sun can come in, and the color is so beautiful,” she said, walking through the sleek hallways of the school now serving about 550 students in grades six through eight.
“This behind me is a final product in meeting the needs of our middle schoolers,” Mayor Joshua Garcia said ahead of a ribbon-cutting ceremony and school tour attended by Democratic state legislators Sen. John Velis and Rep. Patricia Duffy, other local officials, and Maria Puopolo, director of external affairs of the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA).
Contractors from Fontaine Bros., designers from Mount Vernon Group Architects, and project managers from Accenture were also on hand to see the building they have brought to life.
The mayor called the building a “symbol of what it means when we work together to take care of our people.” He said that while it may sound “corny,” it nonetheless is how the school came to be: because people came together at the local and state level.
Many speakers echoed this thought throughout the event.
City Council President Tessa Murphy-Romboletti, a graduate of Peck School herself, said that in 2022 the council voted unanimously to move the new school project forward.
“We don’t always vote unanimously, so let’s give ourselves a round of applause,” she said, while also praising the work of Garcia and Treasurer Rory Casey for fitting the project into the city’s budget.
Officials announced Tuesday that the project, approved in June 2023 by the city and MSBA and constructed over a two-year period, has come in about 10% underbudget. The city is responsible for paying approximately $27.1 million of that total, with the state footing some $58.4 million.
Peck is part of MSBA’s Model School Program, which seeks to mirror the design of successful, recently constructed schools. Among features of these schools are construction of a gym and cafeteria that can be used by the community.
Peck is also one of the first new schools in Massachusetts to be built under the state’s new energy code designed to improve energy efficiency and align with the state’s greenhouse gas-emission limits.
Discussions for building a new middle school began in 2013 and took a dozen years to come to fruition. Duffy, using crutches due to an injured leg, said she was compelled to attend Tuesday’s ceremony to witness the finished project. She praised all those who have been involved in the process over the years.
Puopolo said, “I’d like to commend the local leadership, committee representatives, and the taxpayers for supporting this project.”
Velis used his minute at the podium to praise the MSBA, saying that states across the country don’t have resources to build new schools like Massachusetts does. Instead, communities often have to finance new schools on their own.
“I cannot think of a better example of local government, state government, and the community getting together for a greater cause,” said Velis.
Enrichment
While sixth graders Blake Skelton and Yamil Ramos were impressed with the design, Skelton was way more excited about enrichment opportunities he didn’t have last school year.
“We have new enrichments, like we never had in fifth grade,” said Skelton. “We had art, music, and gym, and now we have STEM, which is cool. We get to do 3-D printers,” he said.
Each student has two enrichment periods a day, and students can choose between music, computer science, art, STEM, and world languages, said Peck Principal Kevin McGrath, acting as a tour guide for dozens of people on Tuesday.
Among those on the tour was Malachi Agudelo, whose design beat out 50 other submissions for the school’s logo. He said the wings of the Phoenix, which was chosen to be the school’s mascot, were intended to be as fire-like as possible.
Interim Superintendent Anthony Soto, a Peck graduate, reminisced a little before he told visitors to look to the future as they walk the new hallways.
“I just want you to imagine the classrooms where curiosity will take root. The hallways where friendships will be built, and the brand new gym where our middle school teams will win so many games against Chicopee and Longmeadow and West Springfield,” he said.
Soto said he liked what he observed during the first day of school last week.
“The look on kids’ faces that first day was something I had never seen before — the excitement, it was like surprise, like I can’t believe my community cares about me this much, look at this new school I get to walk into — and that was just a wonderful thing to see,” he said.
While the building is new, and meant to serve the future, the building kept something old: it’s name.
Garcia said, “105 years ago, on April 5, 1920, the Holyoke School Committee shocked educators throughout the state with their choice for superintendent of the Holyoke Public Schools.”
That selection was William Peck, a 25-year-old serving as the head of Holyoke High’s history department. Peck would go on to make some history himself as superintendent after becoming the youngest person to take on the role in the state’s history, and potentially in the country.
Garcia laid out some of Peck’s accomplishments, including launching a junior high school program, and bringing the city’s vocational school under the umbrella of the Holyoke Public Schools.
Peck was the first administrator in the United States to have a visiting teacher go to the homes of children with disabilities, established special classes for those who were hearing or sight impaired, and was an advocate for equal pay for women educators.
“Over the course of 43 years, Dr. Peck invented, innovated, and he motivated,” said Garcia. “This is a great school. This great school has a great namesake. The community did right by sticking to it.”