Waltham High School - Current Building

Current Building

The current Waltham High School facility opened in 1969. It is designed in two long rows of rooms connected by several transverse hallways. The west side is the Fine Arts wing and includes the Robinson Auditorium, home of Waltham's Reagle Players. There are two outdoor courtyards built into the design. The school department's offices and school administration occupy the center of the first floor. Two gymnasiams and the cafeteria dominate the east side of the building. A detached Automotive Technology annex faces the visual arts hallway.The high school now has a school store called "Hawk's Nest" where the students can buy sports apparel with Hawk's logo on it. The school also has a Television studio. The television channel is called Wetv (Waltham high school's educational television channel)

Although Waltham High is well-maintained, the building itself is now over forty years old and has had little work performed on it in its entire lifetime. Waltham High is older than nearby Newton North's old facility, which was torn down after only thirty-seven years of service due to it aging poorly; although Waltham has held up better, this provides a context for the facility's age and need for renovation, especially the science labs, which are essentially unchanged from 1969. At the present time, the school department is exploring a partnership with the Massachusetts School Building Authority to help prepare and finance either a renovation of the building or construction of a new one. These talks, however, have been ongoing for over two years.