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Date: 9/13/2022
SPRINGFIELD – Veritas Prep Charter School celebrated its inaugural high school class on Sept. 1. The charter school previously focused on educating students in grades 5-8 since opening their doors in 2012 at 370 Pine St.
Located at 225 Carando Dr., the new high school offers opportunities for students to meet high school graduation requirements while earning college credits toward a higher-education degree. Founder and Executive Director of Veritas Prep Charter School Rachel Romano shared that her team renovated the space for over a year to welcome the inaugural freshman class of 100 students.
Before Veritas opened their doors, Romano began her career as a middle school teacher in the Springfield school system. Romano enjoyed her experiences as an educator, but believed the curriculum was not preparing students for the next stage of their lives.
“I learned about charter schools and decided that was a great way to have enough autonomy to create a school … Regardless of kids’ achievement levels when they come into middle school, we could design a school that would support everyone to have access to high-quality education that would prepare them to go to college,” said Romano in an interview with Reminder Publishing.
Romano said several students entered Veritas below grade level education metrics before graduating from the school at grade level or higher. The school additionally received two unconditional charter renewals over its tenure. The positive results inspired an outpouring of parents who advocated for Veritas to expand their services.
“What started to happen as we were five years in is our families and former students would come back to us and say, ‘Why don’t we have a high school?’…We decided a few years ago to submit an amendment to the Department of Education to expand our charter and serve students through 12th grade,” said Romano.
The process of designing the new high school featured extensive collaboration between Romano, and members of the Veritas community. She said the collective’s contributions served an important part in shaping the vision for the high school.
“We actually got to center their voices in the design of the high school. We were able to spend a year with the design team and had the time and space for them to research school models,” said Romano.
Romano shared that a major focus of the Veritas high school in terms of curriculum is giving students the tools to pursue a career post-high school, whether that be attending college or entering the work force directly after. One of the college preparation initiatives includes access to college classes via Springfield Technical Community College and Worcester State University.
“We really wanted to focus in on career pathways … there’s huge barriers for kids to go to college. If we can remove some of those barriers and give kids access to college while they are with us in school and providing them the kind of support they need,” said Romano.
Reflecting on the high school’s debut, Romano said she aspires for Veritas Prep High School to leave a positive impact upon students and families alike.
“With all the great supports that we’re used be to getting to our middle schools, we’re excited to extend that to our high school [students],” said Romano.
Readers can learn more about Veritas Prep Charter Schools at https://veritasprepma.org/.