n June 1, 2011, Marcus Ware, a science teacher and middle school dean at the Williston Northampton School in Easthampton, had a big career move ahead. He was going back to his home town of Springfield to head up a new preparatory school on the former site of the MacDuffie School.
He was on a middle school trip to Washington, D.C., when he heard that a tornado had struck. He anticipated devastation, he said in an recent interview, and when he came back to the Maple Street neighborhood he’d frequented as a child those fears were borne out.
“You really couldn’t get on campus. There were trees down everywhere,” Ware said. “Windows were blown out. Streets were impassable. Some homes were leveled. The South End Community center was taken off the map.”
The campus of the school, to be named Commonwealth Academy, did not fare much better. Red brick fences lay shattered, pieces strewn across quads littered with fallen branches. The school’s gym, as well as a number of residential and academic buildings, were heavily damaged. Interior plumbing and electrical systems were shot and needed replacing.
Five years later, the campus still bears scars from the storm, with some buildings still missing slate roof tiles that spokesman Jay Johnson said flew “like hatchets” to stick in trees during the tornado.
“Until like two years ago there was a huge mound of mulch from all of the trees they cut down and broke up,” Ware said. “There were no soccer fields.”
But since its opening in 2012, after a year’s delay for repairs and cleanup, Commonwealth Academy has made a sharp recovery, Ware and Johnson said. Its first batch of students will enter the 12th grade next year, and it has opened an on-campus theater and food pantry and is home to a basketball team that has drawn interest from top-tier NCAA recruiters.
“No one really could see this campus (before the tornado) because it was so shrouded in trees when they passed by,” Johnson said. “What we have tried to do is make the campus part of the greater community.”
For decades the MacDuffie School educated boarders and local students in its buildings above Maple Street, where many of Springfield’s oldest and largest houses overlook the city’s downtown.
In 2011, the area’s prep school landscape received a shakeup. The MacDuffie School board sold the school’s name to the New York based-company International EC LLC, which opened a new MacDuffie School in Granby at the former St. Hyacinth seminary campus.
And Commonwealth Academy founder John Foley, who runs the at-risk student program Project-13 in Holyoke, agreed to buy the former MacDuffie property — months before the tornado did more than $10 million in damage to the campus.
An unsettled insurance claim slowed initial rebuilding efforts, but work paid for by the school and a National Emergency Grant allowed Commonwealth Academy to open in 2012, The Republican reported at the time.
Since then, Ware said, the school has fulfilled its promise to offer a prep-school education to low-income and inner-city children who otherwise would not have that kind of opportunity.
Most students are from from Springfield, with some from Chicopee and East Longmeadow. Some 95 percent are students of color, an uncommon demographic mix for a private school. And tuition is adjusted heavily based on family income, according to Ware.
“Families pay what they can afford. We do fundraising and other things to support the operation of the school,” Ware said. “More that 75 percent of our students would qualify for reduced lunch (in public school).”
“That’s kind of the point, right?” Johnson added. “The wealthiest people send their kids to prep schools because of the educational approach. We’re doing that too, for kids who would not have access to that education.”
The school started with 20 students in its first class. Now it is accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges and teaches 60 students starting in Grade 6.
There are plans to expand the school’s reach, Johnson said. And there is space for it. While a number of former dormitory buildings have been restored, and house a small boarding population largely from Hartford, Worcester, Boston, New York City and Cleveland, several are still in disuse and could be restored to accommodate more students.
“In time, Mr. Foley’s vision is to go pre-K through 12 here,” Johnson said.
That ambition comes against the backdrop of the storm whose damage is still evident on campus. The devastation has not been forgotten — least of all among the school’s highly touted basketball team, which, like all Commonwealth Academy squads, is named the Tornadoes.
Head coach Tony Bergeron, who was the athletic director for Springfield’s South End Community Center before it was destroyed in the tornado, said the name was a tribute to the resilience of the city.
“My three-court gym was off in the air, like Dorothy’s House in ‘The Wizard of Oz.’ It certainly hit home,” Bergeron said. “We’re in the heart of it here at Commonwealth. We certainly didn’t forget it.”
By Dan Glaun | dglaun@masslive.com
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on June 01, 2016 at 6:30 AM, updated June 01, 2016 at 6:34 AM
Picture:June 1, 2011 – Springfield – Republican staff photo by Michael S. Gordon – The Ames House at MacDuffie School damaged during the first tornado that ripped through Springfield Wednesday afternoon. Dan Glaun | dglaun@masslive.com
