The new expansion of BSM has been underway since the summer of 2018, and students are starting to get a look at what will be an addition to their learning experience. Since the start of the construction on the new learning space and science rooms, there have been many new updates and lots of excitement is brewing around the BSM halls.

Opus, the contractors for the project, originally set a completion goal for March, but they were able to finish more quickly than expected. “We are hoping to have the classrooms open for the second semester so I think some of the science teachers will sneak in over the break and start getting the rooms set up with chemicals and beakers,” BSM:s Chief Financial Officer Natalie Ramier said.

Because of the construction completion, there will be some other changes. One key solution from this construction is that Learning Lab, Academic Support and Quiet Study (all three are senior high classes) will move to Room 104; students will use the small room outside 104 for quiet testing. “This new space is big enough to accommodate two/three classes being taught in that space during the same period,” Principal Dr. Susan Skinner said in an email to the faculty and staff.

But now, there will be one testing place open all day long. With this in effect, many teachers and students will benefit from one constant place open. Before the construction, the quiet study room moved to different classrooms every hour. But since the construction will add rooms to our school, the “here and there” system will be freed up, which potentially means that we can ease the burden of traveling teachers and free up a teacher’s room so that there could be work time available in a given classroom.  

Because the teachers will no longer be able to work in the small area outside room 104, Room 157 will become a workspace for both JH and SH teachers. This will help accommodate the teacher’s schedules and ultimately give them a bigger and better place to work in their free time. The English department will now get a better working space from their old room. “[Our old space] felt depressing, and it was just a taupe dark space,” English teacher Änna Overbo said.

The BSM community has seen the progress of the construction site through the many pictures of the projected outcome to new physical views of the progress.  As winter break approaches, it’s just a matter of time until the students get to experience a new and improved learning space that is soon to come in the theater hallway. “I think it is going to be an amazing addition for the school, and I think the students are going to love it,” Ramier said.