Over the summer, the construction on the high school made significant progress as the first floor of the administration building was nearly completed, and progress was made on the performing arts and PE buildings. The construction is part of a referendum that village residents voted on in early 2019, which gave $65 million towards district-wide construction and renovation of schools.

Since June 2020, the high school has been under construction. So far, completed elements include a new addition to the administration building and a renovated library media center. This summer, the admin building saw even more work, most of which was too intrusive to be worked on during the school year, and therefore had to be completed during the summer.

“You have full access back to the first floor, you have access up the stairwells [and] full access to the third floor of the admin building,” said Tim Kenney, principal.

The newly renovated library media center isn’t available to students just yet due to administrative offices temporarily using the space.

“We are still on pace right now to return the library media center to the student body before Thanksgiving,” Kenney said.

Renovations in the performing arts building and the PE building were also worked on during the summer. The arena and original pool should be available for use in October, according to Kenney. 

The auditorium has also had a considerable amount of renovation over the summer. The air conditioning and circulation system has been updated, with two new vents added to the ceiling above the auditorium seats. 

“They also installed sound dampening devices in them so when the air conditioning is running … you can hardly hear it,” Kenney said. “We used to have to turn the air conditioning off when we had performances in here because it would interfere with the sound.” 

Offices and floors in the performing arts building were also renovated, and the whole building should be finished by the end of September, according to Kenney.

On the first floor of the admin building, administrative office space has been rearranged. Most notably, the Student Support Services office has been moved to a much larger space, where students can utilize a common area and conference rooms to work.

“If [students] want a quiet space to do work, or if they have accommodations where they can take tests down here, they can do that,” said Scott Brown, school counselor. “We’ll also have a space where students can use computers to look at college stuff, to research careers, to do post-secondary work.”

The only delay in the summer construction came with some unexpected plumbing problems in the admin building, which will keep the Recreation Department from moving into their new administration offices for another two to three weeks. Other than that, the project is on schedule.

“There is nothing construction related that is going to interfere with education happening in classrooms,” Kenney said.

According to Kenney, 75% of the high school construction process will be complete once everything currently in progress is finished (the admin first floor, performing arts building, arena and pool). A significant project yet to come is the addition of air conditioning in the math and science building.

“The only two spaces that really are not air conditioned on campus are the art and science building in the old part––that’s happening next summer––and the gyms, they are ventilated but not air conditioned,” Kenney said.