Hundreds of middle schoolers returned from spring break this week to a completely renovated Edgewood Middle School.
The project to renovate Edgewood was the final piece of the first phase of a long-range plan adopted by North Shore District 112 in 2018 to modernize its schools.
The reopening made for a “great day” on Monday for students and teachers, who had been holding classes at Elm Place Middle School, which was closed in 2018.
Eighth grader Dara Babalola said she appreciates the “openness” of the redesigned building.
“Just to see everything, like not in pictures, it’s so cool,” added seventh grader Noa Weinstein. “And it’s a great space for learning.”
Gone are the old fashioned desks, classrooms and cafeterias that people may envision when thinking back on their grade school experience.
Instead, Edgewood is now centered around a three-story, commons with a renovated library, stairs built for traditional use and comfortable seating, and it connects to a new cafeteria and the second floor. People on the first floor can look up to see specially designed “learning labs,” which are meant to be used as breakout or small group classrooms to break the monotony of some school days.
Principal Tony Candela called the commons the school’s “pinnacle spot,” and he observed that the new cafeteria is surprisingly quiet compared to the old setup, where students’ voices would careen off the walls and form a buzzing chorus during lunch periods.
English and language arts teacher Jori Miller, who has been in the district in 12 years, said she told her students not to scribble on the tables to keep the new furniture in good shape, and said she is “so excited for air conditioning,” breaking into a laugh.
The reopening completes the first phase of District 112’s long range plan to invest $75 million into renovating Edgewood and Northwood, and to carry out long-deferred maintenance updates at Oak Terrace Elementary School, without a dedicated tax increase.
Voters resoundingly passed a $114 million referendum in November, with nearly 72% in favor, which has cleared the way for District 112 to move onto renovating its elementary schools in accordance with district plans.
Pasterz said kids were “smiling the whole day” on Monday. Once students learned that teachers were able to see the building’s new look, they could hardly wait for themselves, she explained.
“There’s just so much opportunity in so many different spaces, and things that you can use them for,” Miller said.
Math teacher Melissa Pasterz said it has been a “really big transition” from the learning cottage she was temporarily set up in at Elm Place, but both she and Miller said the district made the temporary move and move back about as smooth as it could be.
The new classrooms come with plenty of perks, from TV displays to personalized seating, mobile teaching podiums and a less centralized setup that they believe will make learning more accessible for some students.
“I have three TVs on in my classroom that could project different things, or the same thing,” Pasterz explained, “So no matter where a student’s sitting, they can all see and you don’t have the awkward, like, ‘Let me turn around and try and see behind me.'”
Babalola, who plays the saxophone, said she is most looking forward to using the new band room.
Like Candela, Weinstein is a big fan of the new cafeteria, too, where students can select different sized tables.
“Maybe you usually sit with a group of 10 kids and you’re all smooshed on a bench,” Weinstein said. “There’s more options for you (now), and there’s also smaller tables,”
Superintendent Michael Lubelfeld called the new building “the future,” and said it is built to serve the community for the next 50 to 100 years. He thanked teachers, maintenance and support staff, architects and everyone he said played a role in the, “all-hands-on-deck effort.”
“Put your heads together, get the right teams together, we can do anything,” Lubelfeld said. “And our teachers and our students are the benefactors of it.”
Other renovations include a significantly larger gymnasium that Candela called “state of the art,” and a brand-new auditorium with a capacity around 350 and video livestreaming technology.
Edgewood’s reopening follow’s Northwood Middle School’s reopening after a similar renovation project in 2021, and students also moved temporarily to Elm Place during that construction process.
Lubelfeld said, “Safety is sadly, but necessarily, top of mind” for administrators and the community, and that the newly reopened building makes major strides in equipping the school to react in the event that anyone comes to the building to do harm.
The building allows for more natural light to filter into school, but glass around the building is designed to be bullet-resistant and to give people time to flee to other rooms in an emergency. Blue police alarm buttons are in different locations, similar to fire alarms, which immediately summon police to the school if pushed.
And visitors are checked very closely before they are allowed to enter the building.
“You have to buzz in the first door,” Lubelfeld said. “You can’t even gain access out of the vestibule unless you have a reason. We do check your background. We got way stricter this year than we ever have been after (the Fourth of July parade shooting).”
In the next three years, Indian Trail, Ravinia and Sherwood elementary schools are set to undergo extensive renovations, while Wayne Thomas and Braeside elementary schools are slated for renovations in 2025 and 2026.
Sherwood Elementary School is scheduled to have a new gymnasium added before 2025, ahead of full renovations expected to occur in 2026 or 2027, according to district’s long-range plan.
North Shore District 112 operates 10 schools serving more than 3,500 students in Highland Park and Highwood.
