0
0
As the 2021-2022 Avonworth school year winds to an end, ending on May 26th for the seniors and June 3rd for underclassmen, waves of change are beginning to sweep through the school.
The school renovations, which are scheduled to continue until the summer of 2023, can already be seen in changes throughout the building.
Some of the starkest changes have occurred in the library. Before even the bulk of renovations are commenced, starting the moment school lets out in June, the stripping and disassembly of the bookshelves in the library marked the beginning of the new era.
“Libraries are meant to be welcoming and have a lot of books, that is the point of a library, so when the walls are bare it doesn’t feel right,” said freshman Emma Noss.
Students are also no longer able to readily check out books from the vast majority of the shelves, which have been taken apart.
“It is a little unnerving. I do not check out books form the library vary often but it is odd to walk in there and see all the books gone,” said freshman Sadie Walsh.
Students who occupy the library regularly were treated to seats in front of piles of plastic-wrapped books on pallets, prepared to be moved into storage.
“[The library] just looks kind of depressing, it just looks like a room because there are no books in here. I’m not in here often, but it’s just sad,” said sophomore Brenna McNeil.
The scenery of the general library is not the only thing that has changed. Students could also observe changes to the front desk, occupied by Ms. Hickman.
“My hope was to do things in a very organized and controlled way but time was not for us in the pursuit, just for a variety of reasons, so we just kind of took stuff down and kept it as organized as we could,” said Ms. Hickman when asked about the process of taking down and clean up. “And it is exciting, like I am looking forward to seeing the new space, I am looking forward to working to create a library that is free of any tether to the past, but I am sad for what students are losing in terms of communal space.”
“I’m sure for students, though, that it was a big adjustment. Like where students sit. There were kids who sat at the same table in the same place every day for the whole year and they are not sitting there anymore. So I am sure it is jarring, but with every change comes some opportunity to change what we do and how we do it. I think trying to balance that with the overwhelmedness of ‘oh my gosh there’s so here that I need to deal with,'” said Ms. Hickman.
