THE NEW SCHOOL
Blackstone Valley Prep opens doors on new high school
CUMBERLAND – Deep in the Valley Falls section of town, tucked away on a side road off of Broad Street, a stone’s throw from crossing the Blackstone River into Central Falls, stands a brandnew architectural wonder. But it’s not what the exterior of the building looks like that’s changing perspectives, it’s what’s inside.
The new Blackstone Valley Prep High School on Tuesday afternoon was formally welcomed into the community with a ribbon cutting ceremony that played host to a variety of school and political leaders who helped to pave the way for the $15 million project.
Tuesday’s ribbon cutting was as much a celebration of the students inside the school as it was the brand-new building itself. The senior class of 2018, the first graduating class inside the new high school, were feted and congratulated for enduring many nomadic trips around Rhode Island before settling in their permanent home in Valley Falls.
Wandy Henrriquez, a 17-year-old senior and Pawtucket resident, said that his educational career since enrolling at BVP in fifth grade has been a rollercoaster, traveling and relocating to stops along the way including old elementary schools and ramshackle spaces next to churches.
Admittedly, Henrriquez said, he became “a
little frustrated.” But the experience was “crazy but fun,” as he said educators at BVP treat him and his classmates like they belong there and they go above and beyond to see the youths’ educational aspirations come to fruition.
“I believe that after the hard work we’ve put in, we deserve a school to call our own,” Henrriquez said. The completed project, he added, “blew away” his expectations with “beautiful new classrooms.”
The building is 40,000 square feet and is designed to feel like a sprawling college campus, a sentiment expressed by the hundreds of students that roam the halls, lined with study nooks and laptop stations. A STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and math) corridor on the first floor provides students with an art studio and science laboratories. The “Innovation Lab” on the second floor houses coding courses, student work space, and the college and career offices.
The two-story school building also features a gymnasium, cafeteria, and music wing with visitor, faculty, and student parking lots; a soccer field; and a public fitness area.
Having been raised in the projects in Pawtucket, Henrriquez says he often wonders where he’d be in life if it weren’t for BVP. But thanks to the years of educators and teachers, he is now applying for colleges, with his dream to attend Providence College or the University of Rhode Island.
The school building is home to 320 high school students. As a growing network of tuition-free public charter schools, BVP offers a public school choice to the families of Lincoln, Cumberland, Central Falls, and Pawtucket and currently serves almost 1,800 scholars from kindergarten through high school at six schools.
The high school has been open to students since late last month. Construction for the project began last year on a Cumberland lumber yard on Macondray Street, bringing life to the vacant lot that has been described by local leaders in the past as “a troublesome eyesore.”
Central Falls Mayor James A. Diossa, who also serves as the Blackstone Valley Prep board chairman, said it was “incredible to be in a beautiful facility such as this one. Everyone in Rhode Island deserves an environment like this.” He described Tuesday’s ribbon cutting ceremony as a “proud moment” and “momentous occasion” in the history of Blackstone Valley Prep.
Diossa said that after many tiresome years of leasing spaces, the board felt it was time to give BVP’s students a permanent home with the amenities that would help them excel above and beyond their peers at high schools around Rhode Island.
The proof, officials tout, is in the most recent SAT scores. Earlier this year, BVP High School scholars scored 91 percent more likely than a typical Rhode Island junior to be college and career ready in both literacy and math. BVP scholars had an average SAT score 108 points above the state average, ranking among the top performing and most affluent districts in the state.
Cumberland Mayor William Murray said it was a great day in both the history of Blackstone Valley Prep and Cumberland, noting that the construction of the school building showcased a rising pride seen across the town.
To see a “gorgeous facility” stand on what was once a “run down piece of property, a total eyesore” was helping to bring that section of Valley Falls back to life, the mayor said.
“The students have moved around the past few years but now they have a beautiful building to be proud of,” Murray said.
Lt. Gov. Daniel McKee, the founder of Blackstone Valley Prep, said that it was appropriate to host Tuesday’s ribbon cutting inside a gymnasium, saying that’s where the idea started. He recalled coaching a group of young men and seeing they weren’t quite ready yet to go off to college, and thus a message needed to be delivered with the opening of BVP’s first school in 2009.
McKee used an analogy to basketball when discussing the success of BVP. He said that if players could improve their free throw shooting from 85 percent to 90 percent, then he knows the entire team just got stronger. He said that kind of investment should be seen in the young men and women of Rhode Island.
“We need to make sure we invest properly … You can’t not afford to have a school like this,” McKee said.
McKee also said that politics are a driving force in education, saying it “takes a lot of courage” to take a stand on education, calling it “the issue of our time.” However, with the success of BVP, McKee said, those inside the gymnasium on Tuesday were most assuredly “on the right side of history.”