NMS Students Advance In ‘School Of The Future’ Design Competition

By Eliza Hallabeck

Newtown Middle School eighth grade students Clare Boyle, Sophie Kennen, Julia Preszler, and Haley Williams learned recently the school they designed for the School of the Future Design Competition won the Northeast regional level of the competition.

Now the girls and their project will be moving on to attend the final round of the competition in April.

On Friday, March 16, all of the girls said they are excited, and just a bit nervous, for the final round of the competition.

As their eighth grade science project the four girls teamed up in September to work on an entry for the School of the Future Design Competition, overseen by the Council of Educational Facility Planners International. The competition is held at the school, state, regional, and national levels.

Last year, a team from Newtown Middle School — made up of then-eighth grade students Baxter Hankin, Arnav Singh, Lyle Lee, and Sean Lee — took second place in the national level of the competition. It was also Baxter, Julia said this week, who helped this year’s team prepare for what they would face at the competition.

Teams are allowed to alter their projects after hearing feedback from judges at the different levels of the competition, but after the regional level of the competition the girls said they do not plan to alter their submission.

“We mostly had positive feedback from the judges at regionals,” said Julia.

The final round of the competition will be held next month in Washington, D.C.

Unlike the regional level of the competition, teams will attend the national level of judging.

As designed by the group, their school of the future would have two floors and would accommodate 700 middle school students in grades six through eight.

“We would have skylights on the roof, and a roof garden in the front,” said Julia, before her team’s project was submitted to the regional level of the competition.

All classrooms in the school would have access to natural lighting and are organized by subject. While the school is designed as a square with the center an open space, the second floor of the school would have bridges connected different sections of the building to help ease transitions between classes, the girls said.

A wide range of electives would be provided to students, and the school would have solar panels and skylights.

While the girls only designed the middle school, they also outlined a campus on which all of the schools in the district could be located. The cafeteria and gymnasiums for the schools would be located in one central building for all of the school district’s schools to share.

Other resources that would be included on the campus are a barn, orchard, and community gardens.

To complete their project, the group said they started with brainstorming activities, then began researching the topic. After consulting two architects, Maura Newell Juan of seventy2architects in Danbury and Jonathan Kost of Jonathan Kost Architecture of Sandy Hook, the girls also compiled research.

The girls named their school Kennedy Middle School after President John F. Kennedy.

“It’s cool to have people in the hallways congratulating you,” said Haley, about her group’s most recent win.

The students all agreed they plan to practice their presentation before attending the final level of the competition, starting April 24.