Campus Construction: The Blueprint Behind Campus Changes

By: Isabella Bagnaro

The first day of school; for some it’s exciting, for others it’s the start of just another year. After the same usual struggle of finding parking, you take a look around, expecting nothing different, only to find two arches marking the main entrance, and construction workers putting in turf and concrete benches in tapped off areas. These small add-ons to campus are cute, but what is the reasoning behind it? 

Many students had questions, I was one of them. So I took it upon myself to figure out where, why, and how these architectural changes came about. 

Arches

The new arches, marking the central entrance of campus, raised many questions from students regarding funding, design, and reason. 

Arches at the main entrance of Jenks High School. Photo Credits: Instagram @jenksps

“My understanding is there have been discussions for a long time about whether it would be nice to have something that really signals the main entrance to Jenks High School,” said site principle, David Beiler. The reasoning behind this decorative add-on was two years in the making and was thought of in hopes to make the campus look more collegiate and mark the main oval, “We had not been able to prioritize funding for something like that when there are so many other things that are important in buying for our limited dollars, those limited dollars are going to go to things that really serve students optimally.”

That was, until a generous donor, the Short family, stepped up to the plate, “We had a generous donor who stepped in and said ‘We will fund the creation of these arches’ and that’s really where we got the ball rolling from there,” said Beiler. This donor also helped design the arches. Once the construction was finished, the board and committee who helped put the arches project together, had a ribbon cutting ceremony. 

The ribbon cutting ceremony for the new arches. Photo Credit: Instagram @jenksps

Turf

“We’ve desired to have a nice space for our students to be out there, that’s why we have the commons in general. The concrete out there is only about 8 or 9 years old,” said Beiler. 

The turf project was a combined effort between STUCO and the administration. Along with wanting to give students a place to hang out, the construction team had been wanting to find a solution to the spaces of loose dirt on campus, with the original solution being to just concrete the entire area, “It would just turn into a big dust bowl in that area,” said Beiler.

Jenks students on the turf hills during lunch.

In the process of looking for ideas, STUCO approached the administration with hoped of creating a nice place for students to enjoy outside, “There had been discussions at different levels about how we can make this space more accommodating for students, and I think one of the things that really helped with this was our student council, student leadership [STUCO] having an emphasis on mental health,” The mental health week fundraiser, known as Dub Week, raised a large portion of the money for this project, “So really what happened was a partnership between our Dub Week initiative and our construction services at the district level,” said Beiler. 

The school matched dub week's funds, “We wanted to give students a place to go,” said Beiler. 

Students enjoying the new turf and benches during lunch. 

The project’s design was inspired by the gathering place, the raised hills and covered spaces were ideas that progressed as the project did, “A project just builds,” said Jeremy Hairrell, director of construction for Jenks Public Schools. 

Freshman Academy Remodel

Two years ago, construction of half of the freshman academy was completed. New, two story halls with larger classrooms, clean white and gray walls with maroon accents. The only problem with these new modern halls is they are still connected by the old-and rather dingy-middle section of the building. Beginning this years’ Spring Break, the remaining section of the building will be torn down and replaced and is scheduled to take 12-14 months to complete. 

“The main entrance will actually be on the north side now, instead of the south side,” said Hairrel. Not only will the new middle-section of the building match the modern appearance of the other two wings, but it will include a new media center, and updated common areas for students. The interior will also be equipped with a tornado shelter large enough to hold all of the freshman students, due to a new Oklahoma law. The main area of the building will have a larger staircase to the second story with landings where students can socialize, study, and eat at new tables. The remaining construction of this building will cost about $25-30 million to complete. The ideas for renovations around the school come from tours that Hairrell goes on, 

“I go and tour schools, not all the time but I try to go at least once or twice a in the summer and once during the school year. That, plus working with the architects, I’ll take pictures and say ‘hey we want something like this’ and they can take it and put it into a drawing,” said Hairrell. 

The exterior of the building will have a cleaner appearance, improved parking lot, and potentially turf! Below are some computer images of what the exterior of the building is supposed to look like. 

Computer markups of what the new freshman academy will look like. Photo cred: Greg Helms.

“We came up with spring break, actually Mr. Grey came up with this idea, if we start at spring break, the teachers have to learn how to float and travel. They’ll have to go to different classrooms or in a temporary area, so they can learn from spring break to the end of the school year with kids who are used to them,” said Hairrell. While there are obvious problems with taking down classrooms that teachers are actively teaching in, the freshman academy head principle, Mr. Grey has already thought of solutions, “There are some challenges, all of the teachers that are in those classrooms have to find somewhere else to go for a year. So it’ll start spring break and all of the following year there won’t be a school there. One year and two months there'll be no school there,” said Hairrell. He went on to explain that Mr. Grey thought of utilizing any empty classrooms across campus, moving the media center into building nine (the old TI office), teachers using other teachers' classrooms during their planning period, and using spaces such as the Math and Science buildings second and third floor commons. 

A lot has changed on campus, and more is to come. But despite the challenges it might cause or questions it might raise, these improvements have reason behind them and remodels like the second half of the FA, have the capability to help students in the long run.