City High arts and music teachers are currently scattered and suffering from old, out of date classrooms.
“Right now, the arts room is stuck in a weird place in the math wing,” Art teacher Jill Harper said. “We don’t have room to decorate and make the art room our own.”
Harper’s experience is representative of common sentiments among art and music teachers. In response, the well known arts and music programs of City High will be expanded and enhanced with the addition of a new wing.
Last year, after many years of being put on hold, the school district brought the plan forward. Bacon then took the responsibility of presenting the plan to the school board, who decided to pass the project and be built through the Shive-Hattery firm.
“We’re very excited to model a state of the art facility,” Principal John Bacon said. “With it, we’ll enhance what we can do with our classes.”
The wing will include several expansions for music and arts programs including larger rehearsal spaces for band, choir, and orchestra, a drama scene shop, more storage space, a music theory classroom with new and more fitting technology, and much more, all funded by the school district.
“Currently, our classes are [technologically] ahead of our classrooms,” Bacon said. “With this addition, our facility can finally catch up with the needs of our classes.”
The new wing will start construction during Spring break this school year and is projected to be completed and ready for use by the ‘13-’14 school year. The new wing will be placed in part of the cafeteria parking lot and where the auto-tech classroom currently is placed. Because of this, the auto-tech room will have to be taken down before any building can begin and the class will temporarily be moved to a building half way between City High and West High.
“We don’t want to negatively impact the auto-tech programs,” Bacon said. “It was very difficult to decide to take the building down, but it provides a transition to the Regional Academic Facility.”
The Regional Academic Facility is a project to construct a building that will host auto-tech classes and is to serve as the long-term goal for the these courses.
“We need to make sure people still take auto classes,” Bacon said. “so we’ll schedule these classes in a way that is helpful to the students.”
The fine arts wing is currently in the specific design phase under the Shive-Hattery firm.
“In the new wing, we’ll have a lot more freedom,” Harper said. “We’ll be able to put up murals and decorations and make the room our own. In addition, we’ll have much more storage space. I’m really looking forward to it.”
