DEPEW, NY (WKBW) — Erie 1 BOCES is getting ready to build a new $65 million campus that will expand services for students across Erie County and provide state-of-the-art learning for students with special needs.
Located at 2911 Walden Avenue, Erie 1 BOCES said the campus is designed with future growth in mind and will serve more than 500 students.
"They can grow, they can thrive – that’s our goal, a place of pride,” said Anedda Trautman, Erie 1 BOCES assistant superintendent.
"We've had a 14% increase in students with disabilities classified over the last 10 years across our 19 school districts,” said Dr. Michael Capuanna, Erie 1 BOCES superintendent.
I met with the Erie 1 BOCES leaders at their West Seneca offices on Thursday.
Both shared their vision of this new campus and told me it won’t feature standard-sized classrooms. Small classrooms will be constructed because some of their students get distracted in larger classroom settings. But the school corridors will be larger than normal because some students have “spatial issues."
"We believe that this is going to be a destination school for children from all across Western New York,” said Capuanna.
BOCES leaders told me they will create a unique campus featuring a town square and a market. They called it an “intentional design” for their students with special needs, all to enhance their life-learning.
"Doing a lot of research on our autistic children, they love swings, so in their area of the school, their courtyard will be a swing yard,” Trautman described.
“We will have sensory spaces, we’ll have multiple cafeterias for students that might need a little bit more space and quiet as they're having lunch," Capuanna said. "We're going to have indoor courtyards.”
The courtyards will be built to provide a “safe place for play," but the play will be designed for “international, educational, or therapeutic” learning.
The new school will also feature a theater and an apartment.
“All our classroom spaces are in neighborhoods, so within the town square, there is a market, so younger children can go there and buy little gifts," Trautman said. "The high school students will be running the market. There is going to be an apartment built on our campus inside, where the high school students can learn about adult living."
For the elementary and middle school students, they will be able to learn how to attend a birthday party at a friend’s house, or how to watch a Bills game at someone’s home, and how to act in that space.
Preliminary construction is set to begin in July with a groundbreaking in September, they hope to open the school sometime in 2027.
