After three years of planning, LZHS has been undergoing construction since mid-March this year in order to enhance the school’s appearance and to open up more options to students.

“[The new updates will] give the students at the high school a brand new LMC with multiple opportunities for collaboration[…],” Lyle Erstad, Director of Facilities and Grounds, said. “But overall, what I’m most excited about is the opportunity that this will provide students to improve their education[…]. And I think this is going to give students an opportunity to really explore some of those options that they have before.”

Although there were some “hiccups” due to the amount of noise that has been caused by the construction bothering nearby classrooms, construction has been going relatively well.

“COVID-19 has not affected our progress. Obviously, we have to be very cautious with appropriate mitigations and masks, etc.,” Erstad said. “At this point, we started in the high school STEAM area, and then also the LMC (Library Media Center) which is right above it. There’s more work to be done. Later on this summer we are renovating the B wing elevator, and we’re replacing unit vents in the B wing classrooms. We are also going to be re-roofing a big chunk of the high school.”

Erstad says that he hopes that the progress and eventual final product of the construction will give students more opportunities to enhance their learning to further develop their interest into their chosen field of study.

“There will be four separate breakout rooms [and] there will be some large gathering spaces plus individual study areas,” Estad said. “There will be three innovation labs and one incubator lab in the steam area. That will provide an opportunity for students to get one, good instruction but two, to collaborate on a number of different activities. So the projects are designed to support the activities that are already taking place at the high school.”

The construction projects are planned to be finished on July 31 for the high school. This includes the new LMC and STEAM area set to take up 12,000 square feet each. In addition to the main two areas, Erstad says that he hopes the new improvements outside of the STEAM area will boost the school’s overall appearance as well and offer more opportunities for students and teachers alike.

“I’m just looking forward to how this is going to improve. Yes, the physical appearance of the high school, because there’s going to be some flooring works some ceiling work in areas that are outside the quote-unquote STEAM area. I’m looking forward to the improved efficiencies that we’ll get from the new vents [and more] that are going into the B wing,” Erstad said.