In September of 2026, there will be a major shift in education, and that change is set to happen right on Lasell University’s campus.
The Felix Commonwealth Virtual School is in the process of becoming the first online public high school to be located at a Massachusetts college campus. The Felix School will make its home on Lasell’s campus in Newton, which sits near the intersection of the Mass. Pike and Route 128, and will be teaching as many as 200 students virtually and in-person.
“The end goal is graduation, diploma, and access to college for every student,” said Matthew Spengler, who is serving as superintendent of the Felix School.
It is accepting applications from students who live within a 90-minute commute, an area that covers more than 65 cities and towns. Students will also follow the typical pick-up and drop-off most in-person public high schools have in place, with the working schedule and time in the classroom as 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. The Felix School will operate as a Massachusetts public school, operating under the rules of the Department of Education.
Spengler, who grew up in Newton Centre and lives in Needham, joined Lasell President Eric Turner in an interview with reporters from the student newspaper, The 1851 Chronicle, on Thursday.
“I have to say coming into the campus was like, ‘This is beautiful.’ And for us, as we are looking to attract families to jump on board a brand new school,” said Spengler.
Spengler and his team were drawn to unique intergenerational features of Lasell’s campus. While the university has some 1,500 undergraduate and graduate students enrolled, it is also home to The Barn, a full-day daycare program, as well as Lasell Village, a retirement community with approximately 225 residents.
“Even at our first meeting . . . it really was a synching of a vision and a belief about intergenerational connection and sort of changing the student experience,” said Spengler.
Turner expanded on the intergenerational aspect that the Felix School will add to the campus.
“We’ve got kids here from six months old to kindergarten. We’ve got centenarians at the Village and teach just about everywhere across the lifespan,” he said. “I think there will be potentially several opportunities that may evolve from this.”
With more than 4,000 students across the Commonwealth already participating in virtual high school, according to a 2025 Boston Globe story, the Felix School is hoping to tap into that market with its new hybrid model.
“Sort of this orbit of what happens on a college campus is so much richer than what sometimes folks can get in a more localized traditional high school,” said Spengler.
Turner, who came to Lasell in 2017 and is in his third full year as president, said the Felix School’s “mentality is very similar to a Lasell’s.”
“We have been very innovative for an institution of higher education,” Turner said. “Sometimes our new ideas grow into things such as Lasell Village. Sometimes they don’t.
“We may not have all the answers when we try something new, but we’ve thought about it enough to think that it’s able to be successful. And we start, we tinker with it and do whatever it takes to be successful. That like-mindedness, I think, resonated with both of us as we explored this.”
Spengler explained the Felix School’s nuanced approach, “There are two [fully online high schools] that have existed for several years . . . I think what the state was looking for is more innovation, more choice. And so it’s combining virtual school with an in-person hub community building.”
On the Felix School’s website, potential students are described as “Self-starters comfortable learning in flexible ways, [who] take ownership and follow through on commitments, and are willing to share work, get feedback, and improve.”
The idea and model stemmed from a similar collaboration at Arizona State University, called the Khan World School, which is a fully-online high school program.
The Felix School’s structure features a skills-based approach and encourages students to learn at their own pace. It will also structure individualized learning plans for students, prioritizing mastery-based and self-paced learning, not grades.
The school will have a heavy emphasis on seminar learning and exploration projects, and students will gain time management and executive-function skills once they move on and grow from the Felix School.
The Felix School will utilize the Khan World School’s academic course and online remote platform. It will see students move through a course sequence while also following the Massachusetts graduation standards.
The Khan World School allows students to move through school quickly if they’re ready. Spengler said that the Felix School ensures that “each student will have their own learning plan. And they will have a learning guide, or a teacher that is managing that plan with the family.
“So you have conversations, here’s what the pathway looks like, but it might be different. We might have a student’s interest in journalism. . . . They may do some project work or they might take an online college class. Each plan will look a little different.”
The on-campus particulars, such as which rooms will be used or how the new students will be fed, have not yet been decided. And a search for a principal is underway. Still, all of those involved with the project are excited about the opportunities for collaboration.
“There are so many [student] clubs and organizations, interests that faculty members are pursuing, research that they’re doing. It’s almost endless,” said Turner. “Our imagination is the only thing that limits us in terms of how we might figure out ways to integrate and work with each other.”
The Felix School considered three Massachusetts colleges before choosing Lasell.
“[The Felix School] told us their needs, and those actually fit very well,” said Turner. “The fact that it was a school for the ages and the grades that it offers made perfect sense for us for a lot of different reasons.”
The Felix School considered three Massachusetts colleges before choosing Lasell. Many team members have noted that the campus vibe helped make it an easy choice.
“Our impression was super welcoming,” said Spengler. “People are opening doors. They’re saying hello. The Lasell community looks like what we want in the high school community.
“We’re asking parents to, you know, hop on board a sort of new way of doing high school.”
–Feb. 27, 2026–
