ANDOVER, Kan. — In the fall of 2020, Andover High School (AHS) students will begin their year in a new, state-of-the-art high school designed for the 21st century.

Construction started in late October on the new $61.9million school, which will be located just east, or behind, the current AHS.The current gymnasiums, weight room, locker rooms and shops will remain. The new facility will be connected to that portion of the existing building.

The new AHS is the largest project among the $188 million in bond improvements approved by voters in May of 2017. The bond issue also includes replacing Meadowlark Elementary and building storm shelters and secure entrances, a district tennis complex, upgraded athletic facilities, a middle-and high-school orchestra program, an expanded preschool program and other necessary facility improvements.

“We were hired to do a district-wide master plan study to assess their overall facilities and we were hired in early 2016,” said Malcolm Watkins, project architect and vice president of SJCF Architecture. “We’re working on all the projects for the bond issue and we’re halfway through the total bond measure work.”

The construction team also consists of Hutton Construction and Icon Structures.

Over the last year, around 170 district staff, parents and community members participated in a facilities study process to identify district needs for the future. Participants evaluated solutions for the district and reviewed finance, demographics, technology, pupil transportation, infrastructure, community research and data for each building to develop a new vision for Andover’s facilities.

In December 2016, the Board of Education accepted the MasterFacilities Plan that included renovating or expanding all 10 district school buildings, support centers and athletic facilities. In addition, it proposes options to construct new campuses for Meadowlark Elementary and AHS. The cost of these new buildings and renovations is $188.605 million, for which the district has covered in the two propositions that were approved May 2017.

The new high school will be 298,000 square feet, and will include 240,000 square feet of new construction. The new district-wide swimming facility will be 15,500 square feet of that total.

The new building will replace a deteriorating current AHS facility. It will include flexible, 21st-century learning environments and improve safety and security improvements. Existing low, dark corridors and classrooms will be replaced by multi-level, open spaces with plenty of daylight.

Classrooms will be organized by subject into two-story pods that radiate from a central area, which contains multi-use collaboration spaces along its length. The north end of the main corridor terminates in an open lecture hall space called the “Learning Stair,” and area with tiered seating.This space can be utilized for staff meetings, student groups and guest lectures, as well as a large teaching space.

“Basically the Learning Stair is kind of an open lecture hall space so it’s kind of a shared collaboration space,” said Watkins. “It’s a two-story common space within the building that has built-in risers or seats for students to gather on and has the ability for presenters to present something and a balcony area that overlooks the two-story space.”

The new school will also include a 970-seat auditorium that includes an orchestra pit, an eight-lane, district-wide swimming facility that can accommodate competitions with seating for 250, a FEMA-rated storm shelters to accommodate all building occupants, and a controlled access main entry with security camera monitoring and buzzer entry.

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FRISCO, Texas — Frisco Independent School District (FISD) will begin construction next year on its 11th high school, which will be constructed on the eastern side of the school district.

The campus will be built near the intersection of Stacy Road and Collin McKinney Parkway in west McKinney. Its expected opening date has been moved up by one year, moving the original projected date from 2022 to 2021 due to updated enrollment projections.

Plans for the school are moving forward following voter approval of the 2018 bond program and Tax Ratification Election. Only identified as High School No. 11, the new project will be funded under the 2014 bond program. The election ensures funds will be available for other district infrastructure needs, such as school maintenance and repairs, which might have taken priority over new school construction.

“Frisco ISD took a pause in our building program to more effectively utilize existing facility space and be certain we were on the same page as parents and taxpayers,” said Dr. Todd Fouche, deputy superintendent for business and operations. “The community told us last year they wanted to continue our current model of smaller high schools focused on student opportunity. This month, voters gave us the resources to carry that vision forward and build new schools as needed to accommodate enrollment growth.”

When FISD purchased land for the school in 2015, officials worked with Allen Independent School District on a boundary swap to provide more flexibility for the layout of the site. The architectural firm Stantec began design work back in 2016. At the time, the school was projected to open as early as fall 2019.

Student enrollment growth began to slow around the same time, pushing out the expected opening date. Frisco ISD is still adding more new students per year than any other school district in Texas, but at a slower pace than past years. Growth is projected to continue at a declining rate as the district gets closer to build-out.

Earlier this month, the Frisco ISD Board of Trustees reviewed a slightly modified design for High School No. 11. Minor tweaks were made to the original design to provide more collaborative learning spaces within the school for future-ready learning. Construction is expected to begin in the spring, with rezoning for the school to occur in fall 2020.

FISD is in the process of prioritizing and evaluating the timeline for other construction projects authorized under the 2014 and 2018 bond programs.

In addition to High School No. 11, funding for two new elementary schools remains under the 2014 bond program. The 2018 bond program, approved by voters in November, will provide funding for four new schools and a range of other infrastructure projects.

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DALLAS — Merriman Anderson/Architects (MAA) recently announced that the historic Dallas High School has achieved LEED Gold certification.

The 102,000-square-foot, four-story building was built in 1907 and sat empty for nearly two decades before being purchased by Matthews Southwest and redeveloped into 78,000 square feet of historically converted office space, along with 10,000 square feet of restaurant, retail and outdoor patio space.

MAA is the design architect, historic architect and architect of record for the building shell and interior restoration, including the LEED certification process.

In order to receive LEED gold certification, MAA implemented many sustainable site and material strategies, as well as envelope improvements to optimize energy efficiency.

“To increase the energy performance of the building, the envelope was improved per historic preservation standards, which was the biggest challenge,” said Aimee Sanborn, AIA, LEED AP BD+C, Principal and Team Leader at Merriman Anderson/Architects. “However, with the envelope and lighting improvements, combined energy savings improved by more than 21.9 percent.”

A few sustainable site strategies included the abatement of contaminants in the existing building, such as the installation of native vegetation with drip irrigation and priority parking for fuel-efficient vehicles as well as on-site electric charging stations.

Highly reflective thermoplastic polyolefin (TPO) roofing membrane, an efficient HVAC system, and LED lighting were all established within the building to improve energy efficiency. With the installation of low flow fixtures, the potable water use within the building was reduced by more than 49.31 percent.

More than 99.64 percent of the existing core and shell were reused, and products were installed that possessed recycled content reducing the amount of construction waste. To improve the environmental health throughout the building, MAA installed low-emitting materials.

Dallas High School recently won a 2018 Preservation Dallas Achievement Award, which honors Dallas’ outstanding residential and commercial historic preservation projects and the individuals who are committed to making Dallas a better place to live by protecting its architectural heritage.

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KINGSPORT, Tenn. — Construction of Dobyns-Bennett High School’s new Regional Science and Technology Center (RSTC) is currently underway in the form of a large triangular-shaped structure that will serve as its new entrance.

The $20 million project currently sits in front of the Dobyns-Bennett High School campus and includes a new 75,000 square-foot, three-story, 400-seat facility with a mission to create a culture that inspires innovation through science and technology.

As designed, the new RSTC facility will feature a three-story atrium and include 18 science and tech labs, two teacher work spaces, six student work spaces, one TEAL (Technology Enhanced Active Learning) lab, one large research lab, four small research labs, a student café, and administrative offices.

Perkins+Will of Atlanta designed the new facility, and BurWil Construction Inc. of Bristol, Tenn., is serving as the project’s contractor.

“Because of the shape of the existing building there’s a different shape to the rooms, said Steve Trimble, project architect at Perkins+Will of Atlanta. “We have classrooms that can flip and change and be different things as needed.”

According to Kingsport City Schools, the overall goals for the RSTC facility include defining the Dobyns-Bennett main entrance, improving circulation and accessibility at Dobyns-Bennett for students and staff, capitalizing on an opportunity for a new identity for the Dobyns-Bennett facility while maintaining the current design and legacy elements, and adding an enhanced science and technology program at Dobyns-Bennett with new and enhanced facilities and programming while increasing Dobyns-Bennett’s student capacity.

The new facility would also raise Dobyns-Bennett’s capacity to support 2,500 students at 85 percent utilization, according to Kingsport City Schools.

“The client really had a vision that they wanted something specific so they really pushed us to create that thing,” said Trimble. “We toured buildings just to get an idea of the design of the buildings.”

Trimble said the buildings he toured together with Kingsport City school officials included other high schools Perkins+Will had completed in the Atlanta region.

For example, Trimble said that there was a tremendous amount of glass used to create an open and transparent façade of the facility. He said school officials benefited from seeing some of the same facades in other Perkins+Will school designs.

“It was important for them to see a building that had a lot of glass and realize that students were not going to be on display like a fishbowl kind of thing,” said Trimble.

Trimble said that one interesting part of the design process for the RSTC was adding on to the existing Dobyns-Bennett hexagon-like pod structure that was built in 1967.

According to the Times News, Dobyns-Bennett was touted as an “ultra-modern high school” with wall-to-wall carpet when it first opened in 1967. However 50 years later the design of having only one window per classroom has given way to a wall of windows that let in natural light according to the design of the new RSTC facility.

“We inverted that relationship and we’ve increased the views out into the mountains beyond so you get a really picturesque view from these classrooms that are higher than they were,” said Trimble.

Construction on the new facility began during the school’s 2017 winter break and is scheduled for completion on May 31, 2019; the facility is scheduled to open in August of 2019.

A report from the Times News contributed to this story.

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LEBANON, Tenn. — Wilson County Schools (WCS) is looking to build a new high school in Mt. Juliet due to a growing student population.

The Tennessean reports that at the school district’s request, county commissioners voted to approve an amendment that would move $107 million from within their budget towards construction of the new school WCS plans to open in August 2020.

“A big day for Wilson County,” said WCS Director of Schools Donna Wright to the Tennessean. “It was pretty evident that there was not only the recognized need, but that the effort to make sure that we would not only build the new high school, but there would be the support behind building the new high school.”

The district is currently composed of over 18,300 students and 1,707 teachers at 10 elementary schools, three K-8 schools, three middle schools, and four high schools.

According to an earlier report from the Tenessean, Mt. Juliet High has a current enrollment of 2,246 students, with an ideal building capacity of 2,000. Lebanon High is currently at 1,922 students and Wilson Central at 1,950 students at buildings also with ideal capacities at 2,000 students.

With a two-year construction period estimated, the new high school will reportedly be built on land near North Greenhill and Lebanon roads.

In 2016, the county approved $46 million for the construction of a new middle school in Gladeville that is set to open in August 2019.

The Tennessean reports that other recent district projects have included renovations at Gladeville, Tuckers Crossroads, Watertown and Southside elementary schools and work to convert the former Lebanon High School into an administrative complex. Mt. Juliet Middle School also recently had theater and restroom upgrades completed.

Reports from the Tennessean contributed to this story.

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BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — The DLR Group will provide integrated master planning, architecture and interior design services for the long-awaited Beverly Hills High School (BHHS) Modernization Project.

The project entails a complete modernization that includes additions to the 510,000-square-foot school’s B1, B2, B3 and B4 buildings.

In what BHHS calls a “full structural seismic retrofit,” the new campus will be a combination of modernized existing buildings as well as new buildings, designed to harmonize with the original 1928 building. Significant work will be done to Building B1 and Building B2 in Phase 1 of the modernization project. Construction for B1 will include a new media center, new college and career centers, new public restrooms, teacher workrooms, staff offices, and a reading center.

Construction for B2 will include 10 Classrooms with flexible partition walls, new public restrooms, conference and workrooms, speech and independent study areas, principal and staff offices, counseling center, and an ASB Center. The Beverly Hills Unified School District (BHUSD) contracted the DLR Group as the Architect of Record for the project in July of 2012.

SCN originally covered this project back in November of 2011 when the DLR Group won a conceptual design competition by a unanimous vote of judges to modernize Beverly Hills High School at an estimated cost of $150 million. Since then, Karen MacIntyre, RA, LEED AP BD+C with the DLR Group, says that renovations on the first two buildings B1 and B2 are currently underway, and are scheduled for completion in 2021.

The DLR Group and BHUSD officials remain tight-lipped about the project, as a lawsuit has been filed against the Federal Transit Administration and the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority for a different kind of construction project underground.

The Los Angeles County Metro has plans to drill a subway tunnel 70 feet below BHHS at the same time construction of the modernization project, which started back in April, continues for the next 30 months.

According to the Los Angeles Times, a $9-billion subway extension, commonly referred to as the “Purple Line,” will be broken up into three phases that includes connecting the current terminus in Koreatown to Beverly Hills and Century City by 2025.

In January, the school district announced that it was filing a lawsuit against the FTA, and the Metro, but is still moving forward with plans for the modernization on BHHS.

“The primary impact will be on B1 and B2 because they go directly under B1 and B2,” said Terry Tao, an attorney representing BHUSD. “The only impact on those buildings would be sound and vibration.”

At full build-out, nearly the entire 24-acre site at BHHS will be redeveloped to maximize usable area for regulation-sized athletic fields, and to create a pedestrian-focused campus by placing parking underground.

The Swim Gym made famous in the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life” will be restored, and a new pedestrian plaza will replace the existing Heath Avenue that cuts through the campus. New educational specifications will guide the development of innovative 21st Century learning environments, focused on learning villages and flexible common space. The facility program includes three different theaters, a highly advanced TV studio, a robotics lab, an art gallery/welcome center, a fitness club, a planetarium, new gymnasiums and athletic fields, and an Olympic-size aquatics facility.

Tao said that Phase 1 is currently in the “construction document approval phase,” and that plans for buildings B3 and B4 are forthcoming.

“Eventually we’re going to do [Building] A, but that’s not on their agenda yet,” said Tao.

A report from the Los Angeles Times contributed to this story.

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Scheduled to open in August 2020, the new school will replace the district’s existing McClellan and J.A. Fair high schools with a facility that can accommodate 2,250 students, from their freshman through their senior years.

The impetus to build the new secondary school came during the tenure of former Superintendent Morris Holmes, who resigned the position in 2013. With the participation of elected school board officials, 55 acres of undeveloped property between Mabelvale Pike and Mann Road was purchased. Planning for the 400,000-plus-square-foot southwest campus was authorized and proceeded prior to the state’s takeover of the district in January 2015.

Presently, the new school is expected to cost $101 million, with a $5 million contingency fund baked into the total number. “We are a district on the rise,” current Little Rock Superintendent Mike Poore told the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette.

Locally based Polk Stanley Wilcox Architects, which has copious experience designing
campus projects — from master plans and research labs to student housing to academic classroom buildings, will design the new school. The school’s construction will be realized through a tripart effort between Littler Rock’s Doyne Construction Co.; Nabholz Construction Co. of Conway, Ark.; and Carson Construction Co. of North Little Rock, Ark.

Little Rock School District Goes Big on New High School

The features envisioned for the school include large classrooms, shared collaboration spaces, simulation labs, virtual classroom technology and makerspaces. The school plans will also incorporate a 1,200-seat auditorium and an arena-size gymnasium, a combined football and soccer field with indoor and outdoor practice fields, and a field house. There will also be a three-story, 310,000-square-foot academic building that aligns with contemporary pedagogical approaches like student collaboration and other nontraditional teaching methods.

On the other side of the academic spectrum, the new school’s athletics department will surely benefit from a 2,250-seat basketball arena and and an auxiliary gym that will be large enough to host tournaments. Likewise, the joint football and soccer stadium will host 4,000.

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BELLE FOURCHE, S.D. — Earlier this month, the local school district of Belle Fourche convened a meeting to move forward on awarding a nearly $3 million bid for the construction of a proposed Career and Technical Education (CTE) building. The proposed structure is not only a place to train high school students in industries as diverse as welding, family and consumer science, hospitality and agriculture, it’s also representative of a trend working its way across the nation.

Presaged by what were once known as vocational or trade high schools, the Career and Technical Education movement is seeing high schools throughout the U.S. launching programs shaped specifically to provide students with contemporary career skills. This isn’t the “shop class” of yore, however, as many of these facilities contain digital fabrication laboratories, or “Fab Labs” for short, that feature an array of technology such as CAD design stations and 3-D printers.

Sarah Boisvert, founder of Fab Lab Hub, a non-profit associated with the MIT Fab Lab Network that helps start new makerspaces, conducts workforce and entrepreneurship training in digital fabrication, credits the job market for spurring part of the CTE trend.

“A large part of the change is driven by the need in manufacturing and high-tech [sectors] for workers skilled in ‘new collar jobs,’” she observed.

For those unfamiliar with the parlance, a new-collar job (as the New York Times recently framed it) is one that puts less emphasis on a college pedigree and more on specialized tech skills. This growing trend in the job market dovetails with school curricula that emphasize project-based learning and the push for increased science, technology, engineering and math education popularly known by its acronym STEM.

“Making things directly as part of projects integrates STEM subjects that are needed for New Collar Jobs,” said Boisvert, who points to Cleveland’s MC2 High School as an example of a school using a Fab Lab across its curriculum.

On the practical side, buildings that house the kind of technology required by a Fab Lab have special requirements. Ventilation is key when it comes to running 3-D printers, which emit fumes; likewise, CNC machines (“computer numeric control” tools used in prototyping in materials such as wood, plastics and aluminum) can produce flammable dust. Some labs will also require sound dampening and additional safety features like special enclosures and three-phase electrical wiring.

“Some of the machines can be large format, so additional space might be required, although smaller equipment can be used in Fab Labs with limited space,” said Boisvert. “In the philosophical sense, the Fab Lab needs to be accessible to the entire community, so it cannot be tucked away in the math or science department. Many schools are adding them to the library where students from across the school congregate.”

CTEs are proving vital to local economies due to the so-called “greying of America” as large swaths of skilled Boomer-aged workers reach retirement age.

“There is a shortage of skilled labor in the building trades,” said Tom Helminen, president of Hounghton, Mich.-based Moyle Construction to the Daily Mining Gazette. “[It] will only worsen going forward, as much of the current labor force reaches retirement age over the next decade. It is vital to our community that we provide CTE classes in our schools for students who wish to pursue a career path in the building trades.”

With more than 1,200 Fab Labs in her network alone, Boisvert believes the trend is here to stay, thanks in no small part to the Maker and DIY movements.

“A broader range of kids are showing interest in training for new-collar jobs; 3-D printing and lasers are pretty cool,” she said. “Plus, these kids are digital natives, so computers are an integral part of their lives. Smartphones are ubiquitous across socioeconomic lines, making interest in digital learning natural.”

Another factor driving highs school CTE programs is the fact that many offer certified professional training.

“A modern CTE program can include many things, but an emerging trend that can help students standout amongst their peers is the ability to earn industry-backed certifications,” explained Danny Paulmeyer of C. Blohm & Associates Inc., which provides digital marketing to the education industry. “An industry-backed certification is created when a CTE curriculum provider and a respected industry employer create a course and a year-end exam together that provides students with a certification through the employer that proves the student’s mastery of the subject.”

According to Paulmeyer, during the 2016-17 school, students earned more than 5,000 certifications from industry partners such as Southwest Airlines, which was a 190 percent increase from the previous year.

With an increased national need of new-collar workers and growing implementation of project-based learning, those in businesses related to school construction could see a steady stream of CTE buildings coming up for bid in the coming years — that is until some student figures out how to build them with a 3-D printer.

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