First Look: New Pinckneyville High School
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[A stunning academic campus will stand on the shoulders of the great Pinckneyville Community High School music and athletic traditions in the coming months.
Architect Dave Mevert, construction manager Holland Construction, Inc. and principal Jonathan Green gave board members and residents their first look at the future of PCHS Monday during a 6:30 p.m.dinner meeting at Red Hawk golf course.
It's a $20.1 million vision that includes a state investment of $15 million. Years ago, it was a plan many thought reckless. In the months ahead it will become the centerpiece for a town that has decided to go one-on-one with the recession. It's part and parcel of a mindset the area does have a future.
It was an impressive power point presentation with great attention to detail.
The front to the new PCHS will make a 90-degree turn to the west with the main entrance and busing areas facing Panther Drive instead of Water Street. A large two-story academic hall will rise above Panther Drive. Offices and other amenities will be to the right as you enter. There will be a new Pre-K center with its own playground to the north.
Glassed stairwell "towers" will have nearby elevators with limited access. There are eight access points to the building (by statute) with full surveillance and security. The present building has 21 cameras that can see only about 35 percent of the campus.
The storied Thomas Gymnasium and music center will be at the apex of the campus with new parking for 116 cars on the southwest corner of the gym. The area will be complemented by a new commons called the "cafetorium" as part of the cafeteria plan. A second all-purpose gym will be built to the east.
Spacious student parking will be built over the present school's footprint and eastward to Quillman Field, which will get a new eight-lane track.
Conventional library shelving will largely become an antiquity in the plan as the district embraces the one-to-one technology program where laptops, I-pads and the internet will largely replace bound books. Superintendent Green went so far as to comment that the existing bound volumes are largely "90 percent irrelevant." All academic areas--but one-will be together. Social studies classrooms will be on two floors. Most floors will be polished concrete to avoid vinyl flooring gaps and buckles in the future. A one-story area will have a concrete roof deck to allow for two-story expansion on an otherwise landlocked campus. Construction will start in Spring 2011.
It will be a green campus with a clerestory bank of windows above the cafetorium and technologically advanced "shades" incorporated into window construction. A refrigerant-based climate control system (which replaces cumbersome plumbing systems) will allow for separate climate controls in each classroom as well a the large commons, auditoriums and gymnasium area.