On Thursday, January 21st the District 86 school board authorized the new Master Facilities Plan (MFP). If approved, the plan will take out the existing pool and replace it with a new music central, then construct a new pool. This plan, created by 140 students, faculty, and community members will be discussed at the Board Meeting at 7:30 p.m at Hinsdale Central on Monday, January 25th.
This plan, students agree, will be beneficial. Jane Kealy, junior, is a swimmer who believes that “a new pool is necessary due to the constant use of it during gym periods and school water sports, as well as a swim team that rents out the pool for their club.”
The pool is used heavily, by five teams or clubs, including the girls and boys’ swim team, the girls and boys’ water polo team, and the Hinsdale swim club as well as the lifeguarding PE class, which equates to a lot of years of usage and, as is the student consensus, warrants the rebuilding of the pool.
Adversely, the band students are excited for this plan as well, because band classes are likely the most over-crowded classes in the school. Band students are often split into groups of students who stay in the band room and another group who must play in the hall because there is simply not enough room for everyone to work in a classroom.
Athan Arhos, senior, is currently in his fourth year of high school band and agrees that the band room situation is not at all a conducive work environment.
“When we have concerts or rehearsals the entire room, hallway and rooms adjacent are always jam packed,” says Arhos. “Also, we’ve had to spit groups between class periods bc there are too many people in concert band and there are a lot in symphonic too so now wind symphony gets their own class period and the rest of the symphonic band has another.”
The pool and the new music center are not the only proposed solutions; the plan could also include improvements to special needs’ classrooms as well as the cafeteria kitchen.