With New Campus, Nauset Community Embraces The Future

NORTH EASTHAM – “School is a building with four walls with tomorrow inside.”

 As the head of the English department at Nauset Regional High School, Selena King couldn’t help but think of the famous Lon Watters quote in discussing the new high school campus.

 “Today as we celebrate the new building in its concrete form, I ask you to contemplate the tomorrows this building may inspire for our students,” she told those in attendance at a ceremony last Saturday to celebrate the completion of the new campus.

The new Nauset Regional High School campus took the work of many hands, from town and school officials to scores of community volunteers. But Judith Schumacher said at the end of the day, the years-long project was all about the students.

 “For the students, after all, are why we’re here,” said Schumacher, chair of the Nauset Regional School Committee. “And they now have a wonderful place to thrive.”

 So it only made sense last Saturday afternoon that students cut the ceremonial ribbon celebrating the completion of the campus project. With a quick snip of the scissors, Jacob Dewey, Jenna Smith, Wyatt Carroll and Gabe Walsh together helped usher in a new era at the high school.

 The $169.9 million campus project involved both new construction and the renovation of existing campus buildings, which date back to 1972. Voters in the four Nauset towns of Orleans, Brewster, Eastham and Wellfleet approved $131.8 million for the new campus in March 2021. Two years later, voters approved an additional $38.1 million to cover additional costs due to inflation. A portion of the overall project cost, $36.6 million, was covered by the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA).

 “Congratulations,” MSBA CEO Jim MacDonald said. “What an amazing day to celebrate your community.”

New construction, which accounted for 60 percent of the campus, went online at the start of the 2024-2025 school year, including a new G building complete with a new gymnasium, an E building hosting modernized science classrooms and a new F building with a new auditorium and administration and guidance offices. The N building, which was built in 1995, was also renovated as part of the first phase of work.

 This year, renovations were completed on the A, B, C and D buildings. Greg Levasseur, who chaired the regional school district’s buildings subcommittee, said that final site work on the campus will hopefully be completed by year’s end.

Schumacher took time to thank former Nauset Superintendents Tom Conrad and Brooke Clenchy for their shared efforts in helping see the project through to completion.

 Conrad earned the nickname “Mr. Nauset” through his six years as superintendent and 21 years prior as Nauset High principal, Schumacher noted. She said in recognition of his service, the new administration building will be named in his honor.

 “Tom understood better than anyone the bones of this school, as well as its heartbeat,” she said. “This new campus was Tom’s vision, and from the beginning he was the architect, the conductor and the main cheerleader.”

 Clenchy, who succeeded Conrad upon his retirement in 2021, employed a combination of “care, intelligence and determination” to push the project past the finish line, Schumacher said. That included rallying the four Nauset communities through a second vote for project funding.

 For current Nauset Superintendent Glenn Brand, who started in his role in July 2025, all that was left to do was celebrate the work of many that came before him. The campus, he said, is more than a high school, but a “community asset.”

 “All the hard work in planning and designing the building and the grounds was done long before I arrived,” he said. “And I simply get to stand here today and help celebrate the completion of this incredible facility.”

The completion of construction meant for the first time since early 2023, students and staff have been able to attend classes in the school buildings instead of in the modular classrooms that were used while work was ongoing. The modular units have since been demolished and removed.

 For Walsh, a junior from Brewster, the return to a more traditional classroom setting has been a welcome one.

 “It’s really exciting,” he said. “I feel like in the mods, everything was so cramped. You’d see teachers moving between classrooms all the time, students staying in the mods all day. But when you’re in here, you’re gonna be moving around, you’re gonna be seeing new people. There’s just so much more ground to cover.”

 “I really like that now you don’t have to walk outside,” said Junior Kapka Thompson of Harwich of the interconnectedness of the campus buildings via  breezeways. “Nauset’s supposed to be an open campus, but I like that they give you the option to travel inside.”

 Nauset Senior Lillian Peck said her family moved from Hyannis to Brewster so she and her brother could attend school in the district. Next year, she will be the first person in her family to attend college, she said.

 Peck applauded the new high school campus, specifically the warmth that comes with passing by the large windows in the A building and the new science classrooms.

 “Our Nauset campus is, now more than ever, welcoming, bright and a perfect environment for learning,” she said.

 For State Senator Julian Cyr, D-Provincetown, a 2004 Nauset graduate, the new campus delivers on the commitment to top quality education that the district has always prided itself on. He also recalled the role the school played in helping shape his civic awareness, recalling his involvement in a student-led effort to support an override for the district in 2003.

 “It was really the first time I could ever conceive that I could be somebody who could step up for their community and instigate change,” he said.

 That override passed, showing the Nauset community’s commitment to education. Cyr applauded taxpayers and voters for stepping up in a similar fashion to support the new high school project through two separate votes.

 State Rep. Hadley Luddy, D-Orleans, is the parent of two Nauset graduates and a third who is currently a junior at the high school. She said the new campus promises to further the school’s investment in its students, both academically and in extracurricular activities.

 “Our local children find their place here at Nauset,” she said. “Whether it’s in the classroom, through athletics or the arts community, this school provides opportunities for them to grow, explore their interests and build confidence.”

 Following the ceremony, 35 Nauset High students served as guides as attendees took time to walk around the school, while the new cafeteria offered coffee and refreshments.

 “You all have given these students a wonderful gift,” Schumacher said. “And your support has shown them how wonderful they are, and how important community is.”