New I-Wing For 2008-09
by Rachel Csaszar
Editor in Chief
Most students at Mentor High School are oblivious to the fact that many students attend classes in the “hidden” part of the school called I-Wing. Most students don’t even know I-Wing exists beyond the two health rooms that everyone has gone to. Does anybody know there is an Auto shop? Or an entire gym for wrestling?
No matter how unknown I-Wing has been in the past, it won’t be shrouded in the shadows for much longer. Starting this spring of 2008, extreme renovation of I-Wing is slated to occur.
The plan, according to principal Jospeh Spiccia, is to reinvent I-Wing and to get it ready to hold new technology to teach and prepare the students of Mentor High School for the 21st century. The old Print Shop has been eliminated, and all the rest of the open space is being turned into a few classrooms to house some new class options.
Instead of the traditional photography class Mentor High School offers now, it will soon only offer Digital Photography. I-Wing will also house a new Jewelry Lab, and extra art rooms for general art classes.
Some brand new classes include Home Maintenance, which will aim to teach students simple things that most kids don’t know how to do around the house. These things include, fixing showers, toilets, wiring, and even roofs. The classroom will hold life size models of all these things that will assist in giving the students hands-on experience.
Some other classes that will be offered are a Robotics course, and a CAD Lab for architectural design. The rest of I-Wing is to be used for extra science rooms, and the upstairs portion will be made into new health rooms.
This new renovation was made possible by the sale of two elementary schools in the district, Center Street Elementary and Reynolds Elementary. In memory of those schools, two of the labs in the new I-Wing will be named after them, which will serve as a reminder to all the students who attended them.
Dr. Hoynes, Mr. Spiccia, and a group of other board members and teachers came up with the plans and are confident in saying that the over one million dollar renovations will be ready to use by next Fall of 2008.
Mentor High School’s I-Wing won’t be just another dim hallway that seems to have no end...soon it will hold a great group of classes that everyone can use and enjoy.