Atherton is expanding its horizons. Construction recently wrapped on the new wing off of the Freshman Hall. The wing consists of a new hallway perpendicular to the freshman hall. It will house a new art room for Mr. Dixon, new biology rooms for Ms. Bennet, Ms. Slucher, and Mr. Eskridge, and social studies teacher Mx. Cox has already moved in. Additionally, it will house several freshman classrooms, expanding upon the centralized hub of activity Atherton already offered to a degree in the basement and Freshman Hallway.
Ms. Uhl, the Freshman Academy Counselor, explains how valuable this will be to the current freshman system.
“Right now, some of their classes are not in this area. And that’s still going to be true, but the hub is going to be a bit tighter knit. That allows our community to be a little tighter, allows us to have verbal communication a bit more,” Ms. Uhl said. “I hope our kids feel more of a community because we’ll have our own space. They get that strong home base, but still have to travel the rest of the building for everything else.”
Ms. Uhl added more information about how construction underwent over the summer, mentioning how it overlapped with her job.
“We work a whole month more than what students attend, but when school ended, after students were gone, the building turned over to them. So, all the administrators were working over the summer, crammed into the orchestra room with the front office staff, the assistant principals were in a hallway, everybody’s working at tables. It was interesting, figuring out what I need for my job. Oh wait, these families want to come in and enroll. Are you sure you want to do that? There’s live wires hanging,” Ms. Uhl said. “Families with new enrollments would sometimes not know that we were under construction and they’d be asking, “‘I don’t understand why we can’t come and see your school.’” Well, you can’t, there’s nothing to see. We don’t have access to it. It really changed our concept of what our summer work looked like, but that work still had to be done.”
The new wing absorbed the original stairwell at the end of Freshmen Hall, in addition to a new stairwell at the opposite end of the newly constructed hall and a new elevator, one of just two at Atherton and the first to go to the basement.
Ms. Purlee, the Freshman Academy teacher, was not only an eyewitness to the construction process from her room in the basement, but is now benefitting from its creation with a new room of her own.
“I wasn’t slated to get a new room but I wrote a proposal about how new space would be best for new incoming students. It’s great, there’s more space, I have more space for me, the peer tutors will not have to be at a table and be distracted by other kids,” Ms. Purlee said. “And now we also do building tours and class meetings here since every freshman takes this class to do scheduling.”
Atherton’s freshman and sophomores have had their experience impacted by the construction, but also stand to benefit from it the most. Student Gabriel Crist (10) hasn’t known an experience at Atherton not impacted by construction.
“I think the construction is great and I’m excited to have more space for more classes in this school. Other than the fire drills that go off when they are drilling, it hasn’t really affected my school day that much,” Crist said.
Many of the staff express appreciation for what administrators have done behind the scenes to alleviate these inconveniences. For example, during CERT and state testing, Dr. Fluhr silenced construction until 2:10, ensuring students an ideal environment for focus.
This sentiment is shared by Ms. Uhl, who notes the construction team’s diligence and discretion throughout the process.
“I think their staff did a really great job of trying to be done and having everything reset for us to be able to come back and do a school day. As soon as the students left, they flooded in and started working. There was a lot going on that didn’t impact us during school that, as Atherton staff, we saw once you guys left,” Ms. Uhl said.
“I think the new wing looks great and I’m excited to hopefully attend classes that take full advantage of the extra space,” Crist said. “I’m most looking forward to new bathrooms I can use during transition periods and the stairwell being open from the side again so they are more accessible.”
The addition of these 4 bathrooms will make 19 total: 9 girls, 8 boys, and the 2 gender neutral theatre bathrooms. Appreciation for the new bathrooms is widely shared among the students and staff.
Ms. Purlee is similarly hopeful that additional bathrooms might alleviate traffic concerns caused by Atherton’s outdated floorplan.
“I’m really looking forward to the bathrooms. I’m also looking forward to everyone being in one place so they’re close to their classrooms and don’t have to go all the way around the building to go from Freshman Lane to PE. I just think life is going to be easier, less traffic in the hallways, less traffic for upperclassmen in the hallways. I just think the flow will be so much better,” Ms. Purlee said.
As this stage of construction comes to a close, Atherton remains looking ahead to everything yet to come.
