CHARLOTTESVILLE — Walking through the halls of Eastern Hancock High School, superintendent George Philhower was excited to get the 2023-24 school year started. However, he was even more prepared to talk about the renovations the district started this summer to enhance the overall campus.
Philhower pointed to a large, newly installed hall window in the brick wall which now allows people to see the district’s large pool.
“I think some people are going to think, ‘Hey, we got a new pool’ because they didn’t even know we had one because you couldn’t see it,” he said. “People are probably going to think, ‘Oh no, our taxes are going to go up’ because they had no idea we even had this facility.”
The changes are going a long way in helping make sure the schools continue to be up to date, clean and comfortable to be in, Philhower noted.
“We made lots of changes that visually make things just look a little better,” he said.
In addition to adding a new WiFi system, installing new audio/visual equipment in the auditorium and adding white paint on what used to be dark brick walls throughout, district officials also took on some other, bigger projects, some of which won’t be finished until around fall break.
“Unfortunately, we are not done with everything because of supply issues, so we’re still waiting for some flooring and some carpeting to go in certain areas,” Philhower said. “We really feel like the changes we’ve made are going to and do look fantastic.”
Three of the major changes included expanding the middle and high school library, redoing the athletic offices and creating a safer, more user-friendly corporate administrative entrance. The expanded library and athletic offices are still several weeks away from completion while the new corporate entrance is nearly done. Workers installed new windows there just last week.
“It’s just going to be a while before everything on our summer project list gets done,” Philhower said.
The district’s middle and high school library renovations, which makes the library much more open in the center, large enough for 100 people, will give students many opportunities to develop work skills.
“We’ve got a small stage in here that will lead to public speaking and performance opportunities and we’ll have specific spaces for equipment like a laser cutter, a 3-D printer, and a sewing machine for district apparel,” Philhower said. “We’ll even have a green screen production room where kids can do visual electronic computer things.”
The district’s athletic department office is currently being worked on with the department personnel in an office next door as workers are still painting and need to add new flooring and furniture.
Once district officials are able to finish the current projects underway, Philhower noted there is always something else to be done. He’d like to see the schools’ cafeterias expand and updated.
“The bigger the cafeteria is, the fewer lunch periods you have to have because you can fit everyone in at once,” Philhower said.
While capacity is different for each grade classroom, Philhower noted they are getting close to reaching capacity at the district which he estimates would be around 1,300 students.
“We really don’t have a whole lot of more room unless we start thinking about expansion,” Philhower said. “Our intent is to not get too big unless the growth comes from within our district, which at some point it might, but we don’t think it’s happening any time soon.”
The district currently has an estimated 1,200 students with an estimated 35% of those students identified as transfer students.
