As students stepped into the school this year after the summer break, they were greeted with construction equipment, hard hats, dust and entire departments relocated due to remodeling and major construction projects.
Rooms that were once filled with memories have been temporarily torn apart in order to build new, state-of-the-art facilities.
While construction started over the summer, the plans for this project actually began in July of 2022, after the city of Lincoln passed the $290 million bond issue in 2020. The bond helped pay for the construction of the two new high schools in Lincoln, but also led to renovations at existing schools. With $6 million left in the construction budget, LPS chose LSE as one of the schools to receive renovations.
After discussing possible projects with LSE administration, it was decided that upgrades needed to be made to the school parking lot, Art classrooms, Family and Consumer Science (FCS) classrooms, Skilled and Technical Science (STS) areas, as well as the addition of family bathrooms.
Robert Baltensperger, the Associate Principal managing the construction, noted that the district saw that some areas were not necessarily meeting the standards of what they wanted to be offered, and renovations hadn’t been done to the Art and FCS rooms in a while.
“In the art room, the audio enhancement systems weren’t working so well and teachers agreed with that since it was one open space, so we wanted to make sure we had walls that were up to allow those audio enhancements to work better for FCS, specifically the culinary area,” Baltensperger said.
Baltensperger noted the Culinary rooms had originally been designed to mirror a home kitchen, but the updates will improve the space so it more closely resembles a professional kitchen.
¨We wanted to be able to have more of an industrial kitchen, a commercial grade for students,” Baltensperger said.
According to Baltensperger, the project started the week after school began and was supposed to be completed by fall break. However, it is not certain that the project will finish on time due to a few delays with cabinets and supply orders.
The project affects students and staff around the building, especially the teachers for Art, STS, and FCS. Teachers are teaching in rooms that are not fully finished and are finding it difficult to be comfortable with their new environment. Additionally, it is very difficult for the custodians to move supplies and materials.
(Dale Heidtbrink)
Students have been impacted quite a bit, especially the students in Culinary classes.
Mary Stauffer, a FCS teacher who has been working at LSE for 15 years, said it has been stressful for her in a new classroom without the materials and equipment she needs.
“A lot of our supplies and curriculum are placed in the basement or storage, so we don’t necessarily have access to those items,” Stauffer said.
The rooms are much smaller than the normal FCS rooms so it’s hard to do projects and labs. But thankfully, according to Stauffer, the students are very understanding about the situation. Even though they can’t experience the new rooms, they´re being very flexible and Stauffer said she appreciates that.
Also, it is difficult for her to be separated from her department. Since they are all in different classrooms around the school, it is significantly more difficult to communicate and they barely see each other.
“Not being with my department has been difficult since we´re all spread out,” Stauffer said. “Everyday we usually see each other and bouncing ideas off of each other. But now, since we are all spread out, it’s hard to communicate with each other.”
Due to their new environment and their supplies being stored away, culinary classes have little burners to either bake or cook their food. Since the rooms are so small and there are many students in each class, they have about 10 students cooking while the other students will cook the next day. The science department has been a great help towards culinary, letting the culinary classes use their rooms to help fill up water.
At the end of this construction project, students will have an opportunity to have much nicer spaces. The FCS area will be updated with more current and industrial grade equipment. Culinary will have an interior design area that gives students to look at what careers are available.
Ultimately, according to Baltensperger, the construction gives students a lot of great opportunities and makes LSE better for future Knights.
