West Side Story: Or, Dear Sturgis West, You're Welcome!

By Anna Campbell, staff reporter

Graphic by Ted Jameson, staff pseudonym

Ever since the announcement that Sturgis Charter Public School was going to be a plural title, we have all waited anxiously to see what spawn could come out of our neighboring school now known as Sturgis West. It’s fitting - and natural - that our converted furniture store should produce another converted-furniture-store school. Busy Hyannis Main Street separates the original East from West. It is like Berlin during the Cold War minus the barbed wire, concrete walls, nasty checkpoints, and rhetoric about the East being greater than the West.

StormWatch reporters at East decided to go and investigate the new school, and so during advisory two weeks ago they ventured across to speak to those interested in creating a West newspaper. There were almost two dozen students. The students appeared bright and inquiring, even enthusiastic. They reminded us of... ourselves. So in personality as well as origin, East and West won’t be so far apart. Unlike the two Berlins in the 1960s.

A look inside its halls revealed a maze with real lockers and real classrooms. Shockingly, it was a real school. We hadn’t quite believed it until now. It gave off a distinct ‘Being John Malkovich’ vibe on floor 7 ½, with its low ceilings and busy office workers. Yet even inside its language classrooms we found the characteristic blue, red and green pencils we all recognize from Latin One and Two. Mrs. Botsford and Mr. Andrade, staples at Sturgis East, could also be found sharing their knowledge at Sturgis West. Students, laughing, happy to be there? Yes. It was all true. It was more West Berlin, than East Berlin.  

We had expected something that wouldn’t take off. You can’t clone Sturgis! we had said indignantly in 2010 when the idea had first been publicly broached. But apparently, you could create a new and different school, with the same message - “International Baccalaureate for All” - and the same success. Finally, the new school is a chance to fulfill that message, that more and more students can get the education they deserve. Sturgis West, you’re welcome.

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