Many classrooms in Hutchinson High School’s new three-floor classroom wing look ready to go.
“We are getting really close,” said Brian Mohr, director of buildings, grounds and student transportation. “We are still on schedule to move into the classrooms after Christmas break.”
The new wing is part of a $45 million bond referendum approved by voters to update the school for the 21st century, and improve security throughout the district. Students currently attend classes in the 55-year-old west and east wings of the school, but after the holiday break, they’ll come back to use the new section.
Mohr said most carpeting and ceiling are in, and a walk through the new wing shows classrooms that look ready, filled with desks, but in need of organization and instructional material. Mohr said crews are working on setting up audio and visual elements in the classrooms, and that more extensive work is being wrapped up on the section’s most eastern portion.
The new classrooms are designed to fit specific needs. Some classes call for more intimate spaces, and others are better served with active learning models and space to move around, but on average they are about 200 square feet larger than current rooms. When teachers need more space, or students need somewhere to work quietly in groups, or study, or even meet after school, large public spaces between clusters of related classrooms will be available. Those public spaces will have windowed “flex rooms” for student work and study groups with monitors and connections for devices, and open meeting areas for when teachers want to merge multiple classrooms for collaboration or presentations.
Though these open spaces will serve the purpose of hallways between class bells, they won’t look much like hallways. And because the new classrooms will have large windows to take in natural light, the hallways will have similar lighting thanks to raised windows on the interior walls of classrooms.
Students are already attending class in the career and technical education area in the wing’s bottom floor. That space makes up the wing’s core, with wide windows allowing visitors to get a good look at instruction, and state-of-the-art equipment funded by local manufacturers and the city.
“You could theoretically teach classes in the classrooms right now,” Mohr said, speaking of the new wing as a whole. “If you walk in there, they’re fairly complete.”
The building is scheduled for final inspections this week.
“Midweek, we should legally own the building,” Mohr said. “We will get a certificate of occupancy. Only people involved in construction are in there right now, but once we get the certificate, teachers can go in and unpack boxes and settle in.”
He said teachers usually have the summer to prepare a new classroom, but this year they’ll be moving quickly throughout the remaining days of December. He said that by Dec. 22, the classrooms teachers are leaving should be mostly empty, aside from the desks teachers and students need. A crew of 30 will help teachers make final moves over the break, though Mohr imagines many teachers will join in to get their teaching spaces set up.
“We have to have that east wing bare of everything by the end of Christmas break for asbestos abatement,” Mohr said.
Everything in the wing will be taken to the new section, or brought where it can be used in other buildings.
