Author Spotlight
Francesca Stamati
The addition of two gender-neutral bathrooms, additional seating areas in place of lockers, a new event space, and collaborative spaces are part of a new plan to reconstruct East by the 2022-23 school year.
The plan was passed October 2020 as part of a $264 million bond issued by SMSD to schools around the district, with $4.5 million allocated to East for the reconstruction.
According to Principal Jason Peres, construction will begin around February or March of 2022 and is expected to conclude before the beginning of next school year. While construction of the new event space will begin in the spring and continue through summer, most of the collaborative spaces won’t begin construction until the summer.
The East Renovations Committee is currently planning the renovations with the goal of finalizing their plans by the end of first semester. According to Peres, the Committee meets every couple of weeks to go over the plans, and has discussed the need to have as large an event space as possible to host faculty meetings or combined classes.
The committee has planned the renovations with the help of the Building Leadership Team — a group of building administrators and teachers from each department that collaborate to improve school functionality. After taking the plans to the committee and receiving feedback, Peres then reached out to Incite Design Studio, the construction company being used for the renovations.
Among the renovations is the addition of two gender-neutral bathrooms in the building. One will be accessible for the first and second floor, whereas the other will be for the third, fourth and fifth floors. According to Peres, each facility will have a sink area and an enclosed bathroom space for anyone to use.
“It’s important for every kid to come here and feel safe and comfortable in our building and we do have kids here that just aren’t comfortable going to a boys-only or a girls-only restroom, and so this would be a safe place for them to go,” Peres said. “Everybody’s entitled to go to the restroom and wash their hands. We want every kid to feel good about being here, and that’s just part of the way we do that.”
Collaborative areas for students around the school are also a part of the plan, including seating areas placed on the walls after the removal of lockers from some floors. Additionally, certain areas of open space in the building, like near the center stairwell, will be encased with glass walls and filled with movable furniture for more work spaces. The purpose of the seating areas are to provide students with a place to work with a partner in the hallway or take a test that they were absent for, away from distractions, according to Peres.
“For whatever reason, lockers are becoming a thing of the past that kids no longer utilize,” Peres said. “We have all this locker space in our school that is not utilized for anything, so we would like to then remove that and utilize that space.”
The event space, which is planned to be where the current outdoor science spaces are, may be used for professional learning, guest speakers, combining classrooms or banquet spaces, according to Peres. The outdoor space for the science department will be pushed back from its current location to fit the new addition.
“Envision one large open space that we can do whatever we want in and then envision a smaller space that can be utilized as classroom spaces, but we’re going to have retractable walls in there,” Peres said.
Physics teacher and Building Leadership Team member Miles Martin believes that the space will be helpful for the science department.
“There has been some talk about some science teachers who have multiple lectures and say, ‘why don’t we just get together and lecture in a bigger area,’ but there’s no space for that,” Martin said. “So [combined lectures are] one possibility.”
Along with restroom and locker upgrades, another possible improvement includes the addition of elevators by the north ramp so that the ramps will be compliant with the American Disabilities Act for students with mobility issues, according to Peres.
Peres says the Building Leadership Team has been almost unanimous in agreeing on these building improvements. However, the need for more classrooms rather than an event space was also discussed by the team. Many teachers, including Pre-Calculus teacher and committee member Jennifer Horn, have to work in multiple classrooms throughout the day. While Horn says the space could be useful for faculty meetings, which currently take place either in the cafeteria or auditorium, new classrooms are a necessity for teachers in every department.
“I think it’s hard, because we need both [new classrooms and an event space], and if we’re going to keep growing, two classrooms doesn’t really make a big difference,” Horn said. “We need 10 classrooms. Right now, we have two [teachers] in our department that have to share, and one that travels and doesn’t have his own room.”
While the committee is still in the early stages of planning and don’t know how much they’ll accomplish with the bond, Peres hopes to use the budget on as many improvements as possible.
“We’ll first do the new [event space] and then we’ll see how much that costs and then with what’s left over, we’ll do everything else,” he said.
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