The Grandview community has waited patiently for updates to its school buildings since passing a nearly $55 million bond levy back in 2018.
Over the past five years, the district has been hard at work renovating Stevenson Elementary and Grandview Heights High School, as well as building a new Larson Middle School.
Stevenson saw some major improvements to wheelchair accessibility as well as safety with a ramped walkway near the entrance and a new vestibule.
The new middle school is attached to the high school and both student bodies now benefit from wider hallways, more open classrooms and various other renovations throughout.
With construction finally complete, Grandview students and staff were welcomed back into their new and improved schools in January. Administrators say the renovated and reimagined buildings will offer new opportunities for students.
Building changes
While Stevenson saw perhaps the least outward changes, Larson Middle and Grandview Heights High schools look completely different from the dark and out-of-date building it was before.
Most classrooms now have outward-facing windows to help brighten up the classrooms, making them more inviting and conducive to learning.
Students will also notice that the classrooms are much more open. With collapsible walls and large, glass, garage-style doors near classroom entrances, teachers now have the flexibility to open up their classroom space to conjoining rooms.
“The teachers have already begun to utilize the collaborative spaces,” chief technology officer Chris Deis says. “The teachers either have the garage doors open or they’re sending students out in the collaborative spaces and leveraging those spaces so they’re not as confined.”
The hallways themselves are also more spacious after the schools removed the lockers. This not only makes the school look more inviting, but also more wheelchair accessible.
Just steps away from the high school gym sits the new middle school gym, both of which share a concession stand that is easily accessible for games and activities. Athletes, families and visitors can use the nearby middle school commons area, located on the first floor of the building like both gyms.
Other new shared spaces include a resource desk where students and teachers can visit throughout the school day if they need technical support for electronic devices such as laptops and tablets.
Several of the bathrooms around both schools were renovated to include boys, girls and gender-inclusive restrooms, as well as private staff restrooms. Each bay has individual and private locking pods with a common sink area that provides accessibility and privacy to students.
Although there are many shared spaces, administrators made sure to provide separate cafeterias and restrooms for middle and high school students.
Each classroom’s technology has received a significant upgrade as well by way of bigger, newer screens and newly wired sound systems. This isn’t just for the sake of making classrooms more modern, but to make classrooms more accessible and welcoming to students with disabilities.
“In an older building, you have a lot of hodgepodge. … So everything’s different and you might know how to operate one room, but another room might be completely different,” Deis says. “It’s nice to have a clean slate so that everybody knows how to go into any room and basically operate.”
Positive effects
The changes to Grandview Heights school buildings aren’t just pleasing to look at. Chief academic officer for the district Angela Ullum says the schools’ restructures have educational benefits, too.
“We’re preparing our kids for the jobs of tomorrow and all of those jobs are about critical thinking, collaborating, being able to communicate,” Ullum says. “And so, being able to say to a group of students, ‘Hey, you are gonna go, and you’re going to work on this project, and (we) have a space where everyone can sit together and work on it.’”
Having a joint, collaboration-focused building also increases student learning time, Ullum says, as it cuts down the time students need to travel between classrooms. It also eliminates the need for students to leave the building when they are taking higher-level classes, increasing student safety.
And teachers will benefit, too. Those who teach classes at both high and middle school levels no longer need to travel between buildings and instead can walk across the hall.
The attached building has also made it easier to hold meetings between teachers of different grade levels, allowing for more cohesive lesson planning and bridging gaps in student learning.
Ullum says the close proximity has also increased collaboration between teachers, making it easier to teach joint lessons and connect with one another.
“It’s really great for our staffs because they’re also seeing each other more often,” Ullum says. “They’re able to ask questions to each other more often. It has just created more camaraderie among two schools that used to be separate.”
Future of Grandview
While all major construction projects were completed prior to the spring semester, there are some smaller projects that administrators say are yet to come.
One such projects is the personalization of the school itself. The school walls were given a fresh coat of paint, but an unfortunate side effect meant painting over colorful student-created murals that made the school unique. But the walls won’t be without student art for long.
To bring back the history of the school – and to add to it – Ullum says high school Principal Sam Belk has already begun working with his student advisory group to brainstorm ways to bring art back to the school in a way that honors its past and allows for future growth.
“It’s exciting for the students who get to be the first students to attend the new Grandview Heights High School, but it’s not. It has a tradition,” Deis says. “There’s a tradition there. But they get to then take it into their own direction.”
Rachel Karas is an editor at CityScene Media Group. Feedback welcome at rkaras@cityscenemediagroup.com.
