Of its 60 years of age, A building and B building are the oldest buildings of the Air Academy campus. The school received money in order to fix up the place, and B building was chosen. From amping up bathrooms across the school to remodeling entire buildings, Air Academy is seeking to remain an attractive and functional place of education.

Beginning next fall, students and teachers alike can expect a bit of chaos. In order to make up for the loss of classrooms with B building being off limits, classrooms will need to be shared between teachers. As some proposals go, when a teacher has a planning period, another teacher will be having a class in that room.

Some rumors to get out of the way: B building will not connect to D building, and neither the library nor the new B building will be two levels. But both will be super new-age.

Principal Olson compares the new B building and library to those Home Improvement TV shows.

“You know how on the outside it doesn’t look that different, but when you go inside, it looks all new? That’s going to be B building,” said Olson.

When the building is completed, classes are expected to resume as normal, and teachers will resume having their own rooms to occupy. The space of the library is going to be used more for student interaction and books will be on roll carts – Olson called them “floating bookcases” – and there will be desk areas too.

There will be a space off to the side to use computers and designated spaces to get group work done, similar to a  meeting room. B building will be remodeled to keep up to date with regular inspections.

“I think it’s going to be fantastic,” said Ms. Sciacca. “Everyone is going to need to be flexible at first, but it’s going to be great.”

Students have already begun to show their concern regarding the class shifts:
“A lot of times,” said Grace Ash, “I go to talk to teachers during their planning periods to get help and it’s already hard to do. It will be so much harder with other classes in there.”

“Classes are full enough,” said Spence Alger, who also believes this project is unorganized. “It feels like they’re making it up more as they go.”

“What about the science lab buildings? B building has such great science labs,” said Ash.

This concern is valid – as students’ educations will be impacted by change. Already, students have dealt with changes around the school, but none as drastic as this.

Students are urged not to worry. Everything is being taken care of and schedules are already created to make this transition as smooth as possible. Olson believes the project is taken care of – that after almost 2 years in planning, that everything is going to be awesome.

“A lot of the reason we chose B building is because of all the science labs,” said Olson. “And we’re turning the library into a twenty-first century facility.”

The library will have little rooms for students to work together out of the classroom (B building will have a “Student Collaboration Area” too!) and for classes to gather and demonstrate. There will be a lesser space for computers, as Air Academy is a BYOD school.

Olson also presses the importance of holding to that for the upcoming year due to the library changes. Olson also mentioned that in the upcoming staff meeting that planning classes around projects is a point of concern with students and the lessened access to technology within the school.

“We’re a BYOD school – but next year it has to be for real,” said Olson.

Students’ last day is Wednesday the 23rd. The following Thursday and Friday, teachers will be finishing the last preparations of B building before it is reconstructed. The library is forecasted to be completed, though somewhat unavailable, the first semester of the 2018-2019 school year, and B building is scheduled to be done by the start of the second semester.

Should students have questions or concerns, Principal Olson asks that they come to him.

“My door is always open, that’s what it’s for.”