Official Student Newspaper of Henry M. Gunn High School

The Oracle

Official Student Newspaper of Henry M. Gunn High School

The Oracle

Official Student Newspaper of Henry M. Gunn High School

The Oracle

Campus construction continues at rapid pace over break

The Gunn campus is in the process of expanding with the addition of eight new buildings. The math and English building will be ready by the beginning of the 2013-2014 academic year, and the new World Languages building and gym will be finished by second semester of this year.

Construction of the four-building, two-story complex for math and English classrooms is proceeding at a rapid pace and is currently on schedule for completion.

“This summer there’s been a lot of electrical work in the English and math buildings,” Assistant Principal of Facilities Kimberly Cowell said. “There was a big shutdown in the summer that was very successful. In addition, all the steel in the complex has been completed. We’re all on track, and the construction crews are all working hard.”

The new buildings will replace the old village behind the art building, which was taken down summer of 2010. The current village is the group of portables in the parking lot. “The previous village was installed in 1998 as an area for the temporary overflow of all of the building renovations,” history teacher Brian Tuomy said. “The school has continued to remodel and add to meet both modern classroom needs and population needs.”

Connected by a courtyard and a canopy, the four math and English buildings will collectively have 28 classrooms with two computer labs. There will also be four workrooms, two resource rooms and four conference rooms. Cowell particularly emphasizes the benefits of the new, tiered outdoor seating area for the students. “It’ll be great for students to sit informally and have classes there, and [there will] be trees along the side too,” she said.

The English teachers are looking forward to being closer together after having been separated for the past few years, along with the SmartBoards and projectors in every classroom. “A few of the nice things will be that the English department will be in the same building instead of spread across campus,” English teacher Jordan Huizing said. “We will also have a new amphitheater as well as several technology upgrades.”

The World Languages department will be moving into a 9,100 square foot, two-building complex in front of the school. The building will house the five different languages offered at Gunn: French, German, Japanese, Mandarin, and Spanish.

The administration is also looking forward to the unveiling of Gunn’s three-year construction project, Titan Gymnasium. “Students should be very excited,” Cowell said. “To start, teams will no longer have late night practices, because we can have multiple teams practice at once. It can also house the entire student body for events, no less than 2,100 spectators.”

There will be team rooms, a new weight room, and a new dance studio along with a ticket booth and student store.  The dance studio and weight room are going to have glass-paneled roll-up doors that can be opened during nice weather. Eight tennis courts and three basketball courts will be added outdoors.

Bow Gymnasium, the current gym, is also being refurbished. The old wooden bleachers will be removed and replaced with new bleachers on the girl’s locker side. In addition, the floor and ventilation system will be replaced.

 

Features Editor, Rebecca Alger and Forum Editor, Rani Shiao

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