Kenmore West Senior High School (nicknamed Ken-West) is one of two public high schools in the Kenmore-Town of Tonawanda School District. The other is Kenmore East Senior High School.
History
Founding
In 1938, a WPA grant of about $700,000 was received from the federal government toward the creation of a separate building for the senior high school on Highland Parkway, and the school district provided over $1M in additional funds. The plot on which the school is situated cost $35,000. The school opened in the fall of 1940 with fifty faculty members and 1,250 pupils. In 1959, Kenmore East High School was opened as the district continued to grow. At that time, the Highland Parkway school officially became Kenmore West High School. Raymond Stewart Frazier (1901–1998) was appointed of principal of Kenmore West in 1952.
History of the land
The plot is part of what used to be the Philip Pirson homestead, a 75-acre farm.
Building expansion and additions
The community continued to grow in the subsequent years, requiring a classroom addition to the west wing of school in 1967–1968. In the late 1990s, the school district proposed building a new library information center on the west lawn and an athletic complex east of the original gymnasium. Voters narrowly approved funding for the projects in 1997. The additions were designed by Duchscherer Oberst Design, P.C., an architectural firm in Buffalo. Joseph L. Kopec was the lead architect. The library was completed at a cost of about $10 million in the fall of 2000. The design won an award for educational architecture in the summer of 2001.
Another capital enhancement to the building occurred after a May 2002 fire in the cafeteria bay, causing a multi-month relocation of the cafeteria to the Old Gym while a new cafeteria was erected, opening January 31, 2003, to an appreciative student body.
Enrollment and leadership
Kenmore West's enrollment grew steadily through about 1970, and reached its peak in 1969 with over 3000 students in grades 10, 11 and 12. Alan Hammon MacGamwell (1926–2004), a 1944 graduate of the school, was appointed its third principal in 1971, after serving as a teacher, coach and assistant principal in the Ken-Ton Schools. In that era, the school boasted large numbers of National Merit Scholarship winners. In 1969, Kenmore West, under coach Jules Yakapovich, won the Niagara Frontier League Football Championship and drew national attention as theoretical national champions, determined statistically by a computer match-up with a Florida high school team.
MacGamwell retired in 1980 and served the Ken-Ton District on the Board of Education. Another Kenmore graduate, Charles Kristich, class of 1955, succeeded him as principal that year. Douglas H. Smith became Principal in December 1994 and led the 9–12 school building until December 2005. Karen Geelan, former Assistant Principal in the West Seneca School district, was hired as the Principal of grades 9 and 10, and Smith would continue to lead grades 11 and 12. In 2007, Geelan became Lead Principal of the building under Smith's tutelage until he transferred to Benjamin Franklin Middle School in 2008 where he was Principal until his retirement in 2010. Geelan earned an educational doctorate from the University of Buffalo in 2011 and left Kenmore West in June of that year to become the Superintendent of Allegheny Limestone Central Schools. Dean R. Johnson, who had been a Kenmore West Assistant Principal from 2008 to 2011, succeeded Geelan in 2011 as principal of Kenmore West. Kayla Capuccio, Kelly Lambert, and Denise Grandits are currently assistant principals. Ken Belote is the schools Athletic Coordinator.
Declining population
The Kenmore community, like the rest of Western New York, lost population between 1970 and 1990. Enrollment of Kenmore West dipped to a low of under 1,400 students in the early 1990s, and many teachers were laid off. Despite the loss of population, however, Kenmore West continued to be recognized for its achievements. The Ken-Ton population continues to drop, and teachers and support staff continue to be laid off as the district economic climate changes. In the 2016–2017 school year, after the consolidation of Kenmore Middle School, Kenmore West now houses eighth graders as well as ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth graders.
Academics
In 2013, Kenmore West Senior High School was ranked 74th out of 135 Western New York high schools in terms of academic performance.