BROCKTON — Brockton’s Edison Day Academy has gone through a lot changes.
Over the years, the school has had multiple homes in various buildings across the city. And now, the program will be changing its name.
The Brockton School Committee voted in favor of switching the program’s name back to Champion High School, as requested by the school’s students. The name change comes as Champion School, a choice school for students who thrive in a small academic environment, will be moving into another new building ahead of the upcoming school year.
“I don’t think it needs to be said too much that it was a difficult year in a different building,” Champion School Principal Cynthia Burns said.
“Our students have now been in three different schools in three years, and this year’s rising seniors will now have been in four different schools for each of their high school years,” she said.
As Champion students prepare to go back to school, this time at the Paine Building located on Crescent Street, they saw an opportunity to rebrand themselves.
“The Edison Day name didn’t quite fit with what we were and who we were, but Champion does,” Burns said.
Why bring back ‘Champion School’ name?
The Jones Building on Summer Street in Brockton opened in September 2022 and was specifically designed to house the Champion School. The program had closed down a few years prior but reopened in time for the beginning of the 2022-23 school year.
The following year, Champion relocated to Brockton High School’s green building and merged with the already existing Edison Day Academy, despite the fact that Champion School was meant to be an alternative option to Brockton High.
“So, despite those challenges of being in a different building and moving around, we had a great year,” Burns said.
According to Burns, student attendance improved at Edison Day this past school year, along with STAR testing scores for math and English. She said the program is currently working to restructure its curriculum.
In early June, the Brockton School Committee passed a slate of facility changes that rehoused several schools and programs ahead of the new year as the district was required to vacate a building it leased at the West Gate Mall.
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Among that list of changes was Edison Day, which would move out of Brockton High and into a permanent home. The committee voted to relocate the program to the Paine Building that previous housed the Adult Learning Center.
To go along with the new location, the students wanted to change the program’s name back to the Champion School.
“When you’re moving around, it really is damaging to the culture and the climate of the school,” Burns said. “This name change would really help kind of unify the staff and the students around this new curriculum and around an identity that shows that they are on equal footing with all the high schools in the city.”
