Have you seen what’s been happening in the library lately? All sorts of new things have been added, and there’s still more to come. Students that had seen the library last year know that many, many things have changed – most noticeably the dozens of new pieces of furniture. 

There are many new pieces of furniture as well as a fish tank and maker-space things such as crafts and challenges.

“I do challenges to try to get kids in the library for fun, different things, and to get more involvement out of the kiddos,” Library Media Specialist Mrs. Krista Dunn said. “We have a few more pieces of furniture that are still missing, and a few more fish to be added. But those kind of changes I think are just about over. I just want to increase the amount of stuff we do in the library, you know, do some like, other activities – get some kids in here on a more regular basis.”

The new furniture and fish tank have already been hits among students, with several people dropping by each day during lunch to greet the fish and relax on the couches.

“I come here every day because I like how peaceful it is and the fact that it’s pretty,” Freshman Tieraney Ford-May said. “My favorite thing about the library would probably be the flexible seating.” She also commented on the fish tank, saying it’s “pretty and looks nice.” She claims she named one of the fish “Gill,” inspired by a fish from the movie Finding Nemo.

Though not mentioned above, the library also has new lunch passes that allow students to hang out in the library instead of the cafeteria during lunch. No food is allowed in the library, though, so they need to make sure they eat before coming to the library. Students can get a lunch pass each day by signing up for one before their lunch period. 

“Dr. Carl wants this to be a Future Ready library, so he wants it to be up with the changing of the times. He wants us to be up there with everybody else,” Mrs. Dunn said. 

Future Ready is a program that allows high schools to look more like colleges, thus further preparing high school students for college. It transforms schools and introduces new technologies and ideas.

“They have something called Class VR, which is made to be used in the classroom. So get like, you know, kids can like, instead of just talking about the Roman Empire, can go in and take a virtual tour of things in the Roman Empire,” Mrs. Dunn said when asked about what she had planned for the future of the library.

The new VR system is expected to be implemented next year. Mrs. Dunn says that Oculus, our current VR system, has become “greedy” and expects the school to pay for individual licenses for the headsets. She claims that Class VR will be better for the school financially, as we only have to pay one fee for the headsets.

“I am going to work on getting some grants because I wanna get a new VR system in here that the teachers can use,” Mrs. Dunn said. “I also am looking to get a grant to put a podcasting station in here with like a green screen and Ipads and all that kind of stuff… So those are two things that I hope to – probably won’t get them this year, but maybe we can have them for the beginning of the year next year.”