Construction on the old Auditorium by the main entrance of BHS has continued to move along. The media center was first projected to finish in October, however, due to delays the deadline has been pushed, and no formal date has been given.
Since the last update, the space is starting to take shape for the center. The stairs to the left of the main doors have been started, the second floor has been constructed, and concrete has been put down on the second floor.
The new center will have more improved aspects to the current media center on the first floor. Once completed it will consist of a café where students can snack while studying. Chromebooks will also be available for students to use instead of desktops which will be used for printing. There will be a semi-quiet area in the center of the room with many couches and soft seating. Sitting areas include many tables and flip up desks for optimal laptop and notebook usage.
The right wall of the first floor will have a projection screen, which teachers can use when they sign out the center area. Moving towards the back of the first floor, there will be six study rooms; four of them will be available to be used by students who are working on group projects or would like to study together. Freshmen Jacob Siegel, said “I am so grateful that I will be able to use the new space for studying in the future. I am very lucky to be a freshmen and have this for the full four years in high school.”
Two additional rooms in the media center will be used as complete silent rooms for those who want to study for upcoming assessments or work on tough assignments. In these rooms there will be conference-like tables with mesh swivel chairs and a TV on the wall to display all sorts of documents and work. Students or teachers can also sign out these rooms. With these new rooms there will come a great opportunity for students to study with no interruptions.
A gallery will be included inside of the media center. This space will be reserved for upperclassmen. There, there will be bar seating similar to that on the first floor, and lining to the left and right walls. Towards the back of the gallery there will be the same lounge chair clusters as downstairs. There will be eight couches in BHS colors in this gallery. Some students may say that the most exciting part of the new media center is the addition of the charging stations where students can sign in a device lock it up and come back later to a charged device. Upon asking Noah Gagnon what he thought was the best feature to the center he replied with, “ I believe that the new study rooms are going to be the best feature because it adds a great place to study with other classmates or by myself.”
History teacher Ms. Pietrolungo said “I was recently awarded a grant from Rider University to purchase a set of encyclopedias from Yad Vashem (Jewish Holocaust Museum in Israel) that are focused on “The Righteous Among the Nations”. These are non-Jewish individuals from countries all over the world who risked their lives during the Holocaust to rescue Jews.” These encyclopedias will be displayed in the new Media Center as a resource for all BHS students to use. “I hope that their stories will share a message of being an “up-stander”!” The new media center still has some aspects to be finished but, students and staff are very excited for the new center to be finished.
