Last Year at this time, it was Portland's first expeditionary learning high school, a place where students get out and get experience outside the classroom as much as they study inside it.

The goal is to give kids practical educational tools they can use later in life. And, in its second year, Casco Bay High School is growing by leaps and bounds.

Principal Derek Pierce tells WGME News 13, "We're doubling in size, twice as many students, and twice as many staff. So I think the big challenge will be keeping the great things we had last year being small, and doing a better job of narrowing the gap between what we aspire to do and what we did last year and applying that new wisdom with a new set of kids."

That, say school leaders, is proof the "expeditionary model" is working.

By the way, the new name was chosen by the students themselves.