With less than a month to go before doors open to students, Principal Richard Manley believes the bulk of the work to ready the new high school for the start of classes has been finished.

Educators are going over their lesson plans, developing teaching activities for the year and familiarizing themselves with the wealth of technology at their fingertips in anticipation of Sept. 2 – the first day of school, Manley said.

Preparing for the new school’s debut has been an ongoing process that began in October 2008 when educators and School Board members hammered out a mission statement for the high school in conjunction with parents and other members of the community.

Once that was finished, school officials went through the process of getting the school accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, earning state approval and developing a curriculum, according to Manley.

Taking a tour of the new building with former school board members Al Letizio Jr. and Beth Valentine on Monday, Aug. 10, Superintendent Frank Bass described the process of getting the high school ready as hectic, but said he was pleased with the level of support school officials had received from the community. “It’s made a huge difference in getting the school open,” he said.

One of the challenges Manley and his staff have faced has been fostering a working relationship between the educators who will be teamed up with each other to teach interdisciplinary humanities courses – combining social studies and English with literature, music, religion and philosophy – for the first time, according to Manley. Other schools that have adopted that method of teaching generally pair up teachers that have worked together in the past, but that won’t be possible in Windham, he said.