High School Building Transformation

Ready for use in this new school year are new additions for chorus and band, weight room, auxiliary gym, two classrooms, athletic trainer area and remodeled locker rooms. The fitness equipment for the weight room and cardio equipment will be arriving this week and it is our hope, in a month or so, to announce a plan for the public to pay a fee to have access to that equipment.

This spring, a new contract was let for renovations at the high school. That work began soon after the faculty was out of the building in June. These renovations will extend into the school year and won’t be completely done until next summer. They represent a significant change in the look of Lake Forest High.

Forty years ago, school designers built in flexible grouping options. We have ten classroms that were separated from each other by accordion-style partitions. The idea was the walls could be opened, joining 2 or 4 rooms for large group instruction. Teachers rarely, if ever, opened them and these partitions allowed a lot of sound to transfer between classrooms. So, all of the old folding partitions have been removed and replaced with conventional stud and drywall separations.

The art room, technology education rooms and family/consumer science rooms have all been gutted and are being remodeled. It is very likely that all of those spaces will not be finished when school starts, but our teachers are ready to make adjustments to hold class in alternative locations.

That ugly grey/white stucco and gravel combination that has been the exterior of the school all these years is being torn away as I write this. It will be replaced with brick. Yes, brick to match the newer sections of the school. All the windows will be replaced as well. The old ones were single pane and inefficient.

Finally, the interior courtyard will be roofed over with a blue, barrel roof to match our new additions. When that is complete, the interior walls that formed the hallways around the courtyard will be removed and a wonderful, naturally lighted atrium will appear. There will be a new entrance into the library from the atrium.

There are a few other small items in the works, but those are the biggies. We’ll be holding school around some construction crews for one more year, but when it’s done, it will be beautiful.