On October 16, 2023, John W. North officially began their long-awaited school renovations and construction. This construction is set to be completed by 2025 and will completely renew North High School and make it an even more wonderful place.
This series of renovations will include a brand-new science building, a completely renewed front office and even a new gymnasium. Although it will take a couple of years to be completely finished, it will definitely be worth the wait. These improvements will help make the school feel brand new and fresh. Who doesn’t love a nice makeover?
After a long awaited renovation to our school bathrooms, the construction will include fully renewed girls’ and boys’ bathrooms in the 200s building. It would be nice to have one near the 700 and 800s buildings, but it looks like that is not in the plans for construction this time around. This could be due to a budget that was not big enough or just because plans had already been made.
“We need a new bathroom, like the bathrooms are excessive, especially for the girls. It’s not really beneficial especially if you have to go to class and also have to go to the bathroom. I feel like they should have both the bathrooms and even another bathroom in case and then lines won’t be so long,” north junior Havanah Cornova says.
While the actual completed renewal of our school will be great once it gets here, the construction leading up to that point may be less great. Many students and teachers have already complained about how much of the school is being blocked off due to the start of construction. These new gates are closing up much more of the area of the school. Some students have even had to switch up their usual routes to classes due to the gated-up areas of the campus, which has led to many more students being late to classes, which as everyone knows, is so terrible.
North sophomore Vanessa Padilla shares her opinions on the closure due to construction and says,“The construction blocked off a lot of the route from the 300s so it’s more difficult to go through to class for all of the students,”.
Due to these blocked-off areas, lunch in the arcade has grown much more crowded than usual because when many people would hang out near the 200s and front office, they are unable to now. Even so, being stuck in a bit of a crowded environment is a great trade to have the benefit of getting multiple brand-new buildings in our school.
During the time of construction, however, these changes may not seem very worth it for some people. Some teachers have complained about the broken-off and separated classrooms. The gates are starting to make classrooms feel isolated from each other and since there isn’t much space around them, they have begun to seem crowded.
Especially for seniors and juniors at North, the construction may just feel intrusive, seeing as they won’t even get to experience the final results of all of the construction. It is unfortunate that many of the students here won’t even be able to walk around campus with the new improvements. However, even if certain students will not be able to experience the renovations firsthand as students, “once a Husky, always a Husky”- so when these students come back to visit their school, they will see how wonderful our school looks!
Since these initial plans and barricades have been set in place, there have already been many changes made to the school. A few of the portable classrooms in the 300s have been cut in half and quickly removed. Near this area, the whole front of North is being put into gates so construction and renovations can begin. There are some disturbances during class, mostly just for the surrounding classrooms, however.
While there are some setbacks to this new construction, over time, everyone will learn to grow used to these conditions. Soon enough, they will be excited by all of the new additions and overall look of our school.
