Maine Township High School West is one of the few schools' in the country that is operating on the "school within a school" format. Most schools are run on the campus plan of having separate buildings for each group of studies, or the conventional plan of one building to include all courses. As a combination of these, Maine West is actually three schools coordinated into one by joint use of some facilities.

The students have been divided into homerooms according to year in school and will usually have the same homeroom teacher for four years. The enrollment of approximately 2400 students has been divided equally between the three wings. There has been no specific division of students into the wings, such as by vocational desires, rather a general combining.

Most students will remain in the same wing for homeroom, physical education, and study halls. With the exception of those taking accelerated or specialized courses, the greater part of the school day will be spent in the same branch of the school. The more basic courses are to be offered in each wing.

Located in the central core of the budding are those facilities that are to be shared by the three wings. Included here are the cafeteria, library (with 5400 books), music rooms, auditorium, and the student council honor study hall.

Two smaller wings radiating from the central core of the building will also be used by the three wings. They contain the shops and the swimming pools. The pools, expected to be completed by the first part of November, will be available to the park board for community use during the summer.