Home Sweet Home
Kelsey Tanouye, Staff Writer
September 1, 2009
Filed under News, Photos, Top Stories
In case you students haven’t noticed, there’s a new high school building in town! If you for some reason did not in fact notice the big, huge building that is now housing all your classes, then I’d be worried because this means a) you’ve been totally lost during these last couple of weeks or b) you’ve been up to some mischief (gasp).
These twelve brand new classrooms showcase all that Le Jardin is about: contemporary ingenuity paired with state of the art design all aimed at student learning and success.
The new classrooms in our $20 million high school building allow teachers to have more flexibility with their classroom teachings because a lot of them have more resources at their fingertips. For example, Chemistry teacher Mr. Morrison had a lot to say about his bigger and better chemistry lab that he is not wasting time getting used to. With great pride he explains, “These labs are 1000x better with more overall space. It’s nice to have a separate lab facility where my students can conduct labs while also having a separate area for the students to sit at their desks.” He pointed out another significant aspect that can help with the safety of the students. “If there’s a potential for an experiment I show the kids to be harmful or dangerous then I can conduct the experiment right in front of them but behind a separate viewing glass that they can only see through,” he illuminates on. “They’d be able to see me and how I’m conducting the experiment, but if for some reason a chemical reacts incorrectly and releases a harmful gas then they won’t be affected.”
Also, with this new building it means that high-schoolers are not as close to the middle or lower school as we once were. However, Ms. McNeill says that with this new building it gives the sense of an actual high school compared to before when the high school was indeed among both the middle school and lower school.
When both Ms. McNeill and Mr. Allan were asked about how not all of the HS teachers are in the new classrooms, Ms. McNeill responded, “You have to remember that we didn’t gain any classrooms. There were twelve classrooms down in the old high school structure and we’ve simply relocated them. Those that wished to stay in the portables also stayed put. We didn’t add any more classrooms than we’ve had before.” Mr. Allan added, “It would be nicer to have all of the teachers up in one place, but it can’t be helped. Right now we’re at the halfway point.” This would be due to the fact that the high school is not actually finished.
Plans for the future include building another structure that will cut at an angle into the now existing student parking lot and include ten more additional classrooms that will eventually house all of the high school teachers in one area and put the portables out of commission.
Cue student cheering.
However, don’t plan on those portables disappearing just yet. With statistics provided from Mr. Allan it was given that the portables in themselves cost $1 million to put together. “I’d like to see five to six more years of use from the portables. That way the portables do get good use out of them and the students won’t have to keep adjusting every year if more construction were to constantly be occuring,” Mr. Allan says. So this won’t be happening in the near future. With the construction now complete the next real phase is paying off the debt owed by the school.
All in all, with teachers and students seemingly enjoying these amazing new classrooms, it will indeed be a growing process that the school will benefit from for years to come.
I LIKE IT!
and I believe that you have a gift kelsey tanouye.
a great gift indeed.
^.^
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