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STAMFORD PUBLIC SCHOOLS
The City of Stamford added two beautiful new school buildings to its facilities this fall - the $42 million Academy of Information Technology & Engineering and the $15 million “freshmen wing” at Westhill High School.
AITE’s new home was completely funded by the State of Connecticut. It consists of 120,000 square feet covering three stories, which are connected by a cantilevered staircase. There are 40 classrooms, 5 science labs, 5 computer labs, a media center, exercise room, gymnasium, dance studio, teacher workstations, an atrium, an amphitheater, and a 350 seat cafeteria.
AITE is the first school of its kind in Connecticut for high school students interested in technology. It first opened seven years ago in Rippowam Center, where it shared space with a middle school. Since 2000, AITE has grown from 220 to 525 students in grades 9-12. It is a college preparatory, interdistrict magnet high school that draws students from Stamford, Greenwich, Darien, New Canaan, Norwalk, Ridgefield, and Stratford. AITE offers a specialized curriculum in Information Technology as well as Architecture and Engineering. In addition, students take four years of Language Arts, Social Studies, Mathematics, Science, and World Language. There are more than 30 electives including architectural design, CAD technology, civil engineering, robotics, pre-engineering, digital electronics, and mathematics.
Westhill High School’s “Freshmen Wing” as it is informally called, welcomed members of the Class of 2011 when they began their high school careers in late August. The 46 thousand square foot addition includes 25 classrooms, 5 science labs, and one computer lab. Freshmen attend their core classes in the new wing (math, science, social studies, and language arts – and in some cases, world language) while attending art, music, phys ed and other electives with the rest of the student body elsewhere in the Westhill complex. The new wing also includes a 14,000 square foot gymnasium, which is designated for use by all Westhill students.
The AITE and Westhill projects cap a total of $77 million in new construction at Stamford’s high schools in less than two years. Stamford High opened a new science wing at the beginning of the 2006-2007 school year.
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