Oak Park and River Forest High School is more than 100 years old and has had plenty of facility facelifts during that time, but the school is looking to make a few more “nips and tucks” around campus.
OPRF is working on a five-year construction plan and will also establish an advisory committee to help prioritize needs. The main goal is to make the building more compatible with educational needs, some of which is already taking place, said Jack Lanenga, District 200 assistant superintendent for operations.
Within the last year, OPRF did a major renovation to its discipline dean’s office, Room 308. It was a major priority of Supt. Attila Weninger to have deans and counselors working more closely together on a cohort of students in each caseload. That meant physically moving their offices to one central location.
“This is where the education stuff comes in real tightly with the operational stuff,” said Lanenga. “In order to do that properly, we felt we had to have a dean, three counselors and a social worker grouped together to provide services just for their kids. In order to do that, we had to find four distinct areas to get that done, and we figured we had to adapt Room 308 to become a series of six offices.”
The room was completely re-gutted, and two small back rooms were removed. The assistant principal for student services was also moved into the new space.
“Now we need to do this more consistently across the board,” Lanenga said.
CONTACT: tdean@wjinc.com
