Vanguard Academy recognizes that life doesn’t happen in subjects or periods. This new high school gives students a place to learn with a project-based curriculum that calls for active participation. A highly flexible commons, or “Marketplace,” forms the facility’s heart where hands-on learning, collaboration, critical thinking, and discovery help to build valuable skills for life after high school. Connecting six learning communities, fitness areas, administration, the career/entrepreneurial center, and additional educational support spaces, this open and engaging environment fosters professional opportunities in technology, trade, and commerce.

Strategically located on a shared site between Moses Lake High School and the Columbia Basin Technical Skills Center, Vanguard completes a unique portfolio of secondary learning opportunities in the area. The educational model is distinctly different from a traditional high school, meaning that students deepen their learning through partnerships with community professionals who help them to explore actual business development strategies.

The design purposely mirrors today’s multidisciplinary workplace by tailoring spaces for project-based learning. Traditional corridors and classrooms are swapped out for learning groups and seminar rooms with acoustical glass doors that open into the flexible, collaborative space. Students and teachers can either work together or independently as needed.

Assigned to one of the six learning communities, teachers spend much of their day with the same students. Vanguard’s collaborative nature helps to create strong connections between staff and students whose shared experiences work toward educational mastery of complex real-world problems.