NEW PALESTINE — The renovation project at New Palestine High School took a dramatic turn last week with the demolition of a chunk of the building as the district makes room for new classrooms, a cafeteria and other spaces.
The old English wing was knocked down in a heap of broken concrete and rebar, clearing space for a new two-story addition and taking with it memories of years spent in classrooms in the old space.
“That huge hole is my journalism room,” Andrew Smith, a teacher and adviser to student publications, wrote in a tweet that accompanied a photo of the demolition work shot from the high school’s courtyard. “Lots of great publications and long afternoons on deadline were produced there.”
The demolition is part of the second phase of the school’s $49 million renovation, the school’s first major expansion in decades. During a tour of the construction site last week, Superintendent Lisa Lantrip and Principal Jim Voelz said the project is coming along well as work approaches the halfway point. Officials expect work to pick up once the school year ends at the end of the month. Families and community members will be able to see a major difference by the start of the 2021-22 school year.
In addition to an older section of the high school coming down, construction crews are building new administrative offices, a counseling area and a new main entrance. If all goes according to schedule, these three areas are supposed to be completed this summer and will be ready for the start of the 2021-22 school year.
Still, the project as a whole is far from over.
“We’re at the knock-down-the-old-part stage,” Lantrip said.
The district’s leadership hopes that by the end of the summer, the new academic wing will start to take shape. That part of the high school will house 24 new classrooms for English, math, robotics, Project Lead the Way and special-education resources.
“We’re going to have some really neat rooms and unique facilities there,” Voelz said.
As soon as school ends, Voelz and other NPHS administrators will move their offices to the cafeteria for the summer so their old ones can be made ready for the athletic department.
“They’ll basically gut our area and make that the whole new athletic department area,” Voelz said of his current office. “That should all be done by the time we head back to school.”
The new administrative wing will also have a nurses area and a teacher work area. Lantrip and Voelz are both looking forward to the new main entrance.
“It will be grand,” Voelz said.
Officials are also looking forward to completion of a plaza-like approach area leading into the school, where people will be able to congregate. They’re also hoping all the parking areas will be finished at the front of the school by next fall as well.
“We’ll have a divider (plaza-type area) in the middle here so we won’t have a thoroughfare going through,” Lantrip said, pointing at the parking lot.
While Lantrip is pleased with how the work is unfolding, it’s all happening much more slowly than she and the school administration would like. But she knows it’s just one of those things they have to endure to get the facility ready to accommodate the school’s projected growth.
Lantrip is thrilled with the way the fieldhouse, currently the home of over 20 temporary classrooms, is working out, and she likes the finished wrestling and weight room areas that were completed at part of Phase 1 of the project.
Voelz said the students and educators have been fantastic in dealing with the changes.
“Everybody just keeps rolling with it,” Voelz said. “This is what we have to go through to get to where we want to be.”
Considering all the issues with COVID-19, coupled with construction, it’s been a remarkable year at the high school, Voelz said.
Also on tap during the renovation is an update to the auditorium with a new back hallway for students to get backstage; and major changes for the cafeteria.
“The cafeteria will not only be pretty, but it will be three times the size it is now,” Lantrip said.
The old cafeteria will then become a band and choir space for students.
One of the big things students, staff and families asked for in the renovation project was a place for people to gather, sit, talk and wait for events to get underway in the school near the entrance. Once the old athletic offices are cleared out, workers will build a whole new entryway for people as they walk inside the building.
“It will kind of be a student center, and there will be a coffee shop and comfortable seats for students here early or after school,” Voelz said.
While the project is on budget, officials can’t really say with certainty when construction will be finished. However, the district’s construction team believes the full project will be completed in the middle part of the 2022-23 school year.
“This is going to be a beautiful place for kids to learn,” Lantrip said. “We’ve built for the future in mind.”
