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The new Winona Senior High School media center will open this afternoon for district staff. Students will, for the first time this year, be able to use it starting Thursday morning.
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Staff members at Winona Senior High School work diligently Tuesday to prepare the new media center for it's grand opening. Three computer stations, bistro seating that overlooks Lake Winona, and books recommended by faculty stacked on tops of bookshelves are a few features of the new library. (Erin Sather/Winona Daily News) |
This is a huge relief for teachers, who have had to rearrange parts of their curriculum because the media center was not ready to open when school started Sept. 5.
“It was a big inconvenience,” said Terry Kroening, media specialist at the high school.
But “those are the sacrifices you make in order to move forward,” said lead media specialist Mary Alice Anderson.
Changes include moving the media center, previously on two floors, to one floor, a 32-station personal computer lab, a conference room and a purged book collection. The remodeling was part of a $2.1 million summer project to move administrative offices from the Lincoln Building into the high school.
During the first few weeks of school, however, construction was not completed, forcing teachers such as Linda Pfeilsticker to do less hands-on work with her students than she planned.
English teacher Kathy Nuttall said she is looking forward to the opening. Her department has a computer lab for students to use, but she would have liked to have access to library books sooner.
Librarians say the new space looks and feels more open, contemporary and inviting. “It just looks new, feels new,” Kroening said.
In its efforts to improve the media center, the district discarded nearly 8,000 books it hopes to replace in order to bring the collection more in step with state standards. Officials plan to increase the materials budget more than five-fold and have looked to parents and other volunteers to donate additional funds through a book “adoption” program.
District media staff hope a more up-to-date collection, in combination with a newly remodeled high school media center will make reading more appealing to students.
About a third to a half of the new collection has been ordered, and the rest will be ordered later this fall when staff can provide input. Many of the old books were sent to African schools for a program called Books for Africa. Others will be sold, recycled or donated, but will not be thrown away, according to the district.
Britt Johnsen can be reached at bjohnsen@winonadailynews.com or (507) 453-3519.
