Rebuilding TOGETHER By Will Gaffey
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Seniors reflect on four years of building construction
or the past four years, current seniors have watched the school transform decades-old plaster to shiny glass and new decor. The renovations included a new parking lot, two new wings, a new natatorium and a refurbished student entrance. While these renovations were a big undertaking, assistant principal Troy Gray saw these changes as crucial. “We want to make sure that our kids have the latest and greatest access to everything,” Gray said. “This whole building, we just kind of outgrew it. I mean, when you walked down the hallway right outside my office, that intersection was just very tight,” Gray said. There also weren’t enough classrooms for every teacher to have their own. English teacher Jaclyn Moryan said that she floated between different teachers’ classrooms for three semesters before she got her own in the northwest addition of the building in 2019. “There were some challenges that went along with floating,” Moryan said. “It’s just harder to keep track of materials and it’s harder to keep track of papers. But it wasn’t the end of the world.” Five years ago, Gray was assigned to oversee the high school’s construction by former principal Walter Kelly. “I worked with the district directors, but I also worked with the superintendents and the construction company that was working on the building,” Gray said.
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Gray controlled when construction went underway and made a point to ensure that the renovations had as little an impact on the student body as possible, which was easier when the school shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic. “When kids weren’t in the building, we were able to speed up the production because, keeping safety in mind, we would have to build around the kids,” Gray said. “A lot of major stuff we [did] after school, before school, or on the weekends.” However, construction on the building did alter the functioning of school activities. Baseball team member senior Trey Brimmage said the team had an alternative locker room during his sophomore year while the new athletic facilities were being built. “It shouldn’t have even counted as a locker room seeing as we were on the turf and they just put up two flimsy walls,” Brimmage said. Senior Carlyn Johnson said that when Westchester Drive was closed for student entrance renovations, she had to travel further to get to school every day. “It kind of got in the way of some of my classes,” Johnson said. “I had one class where I had to walk outside through construction to get to it, which was annoying, but I would say it’s worth it.” Though the northwest addition was scheduled for completion in August, the wing was still being finalized at the beginning of the 2019 school year. Teachers who would eventually end up in that wing were in alternate locations for a few weeks. BUILDING
Library assistant Michelle Whitaker said it didn’t affect the library overall when classes ended up in the library’s adjoining rooms, though the rooms receive less use now. “We still use them mostly for when classes need to come in and use the active board or laptops,” she said. The library was greatly impacted
