Opportunities for Improvement

Safety and Security

• Certain areas of the school are difficult to monitor, including large number of exterior doors
• There are no fire sprinklers in 65% of the building, including the original building, Dunn gym and Collins Center
• Site has conflicts in vehicular and pedestrian traffic flows

Current Overcrowding and Enrollment Growth

• Based on today’s space standards, the capacity of Andover High School is approximately 1,400 students
• AHS enrollment has fluctuated between 1,647 and 1,806 in the past 20 years. This chart provides additional enrollment detail
• Core academic and special education space are 72% and 53% of current standards, respectively. This chart provides additional detail around available space
• Space issues will become more acute during future peak years, with anticipation of more than 1,900 students

Educational Program and Delivery

• Physical space constrains number and size of available classes, impacting educational delivery
• Cafeteria and servery are too small, resulting in 4 lunches of 30 minutes each with roughly 450 students in the cafeteria
• Former teacher work rooms and teacher dining converted to classroom space, remaining teacher resource areas crowded and poorly distributed
• Faculty teaching in multiple classrooms with no appropriate “home” space to prepare lessons, grade, or meet with students
• Classroom sizes and inflexible furnishings limit teaching options and impact educational delivery

Physical Environment

• Building systems have been well-maintained, but they are inefficient, ineffectual, and beyond their usable life
• Unit ventilators are disruptive and ineffective as they work to maintain both proper ventilation and appropriate room temperatures. Crowded classrooms worsen this problem
• Façade creates constraints in system upgrade options
• Uninsulated walls and older windows allow heat gain in the summer and heat loss in the winter
• Concrete floors extend to the exterior and create a “thermal bridge”, resulting in warm or cold floors near the exterior wall

The is important because a facility’s structural features – lighting, air quality, and heating – can support or undermine learning

Site Use and Campus Circulation

• There is limited buildable space on the AHS site due to: wetlands, ledge, parking, West Middle School
• All sites require reorganization of roads, parking, and/or fields
• Feasibility study identified several areas where an addition could be added to the existing structure or a new school could be built on the site

Accessibility

In 2017, the Town of Andover hired the Institute for Human Centered Design to conduct an evaluation of the accessibility issues at the existing Andover High School.

The following were identified as key accessibility issues: Parking, Accessible Routes to Educational and Sports Facilities and Associated Clearances, Assistive Listening Provisions, Signage, Educational Spaces, Lockers, Bathrooms, Cafeteria, Collins Center, etc. The full report includes all 265 individual issues, with some pertaining to multiple locations. Please note the pricing information is no longer applicable.