Over the past couple months Westside Community Schools have been discussing the future of the district facilities. A team of parents, teachers, administrators, and community leaders have been working together in trying to make them better. There will be a meeting at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 2 in room 220 at Westside High School where people will be updated on the work and people in the district can give their opinions on the changes.

This project began in order to achieve the goal of modernizing the facilities in order to serve the schools faculty and students and their one-of-a-kind education. This project was intended to help students beyond the new MacBook Airs and the curriculum and to help them with an atmosphere that will help then succeed.

The district got the idea of improving its facilities in May of 2013 when the DLR Group was asked to walk around the district’s buildings and schools and meet with a representative from each grade level. The DLR asked each staff or faculty member on their thoughts on what they thought the buildings could be improved on.

“What I wanted to do was put out comprehension study and look at three things. [First], what would be the functionality of our facility today. [Second], what would new learning spaces look like around the functionality. [And third], what are the immediate needs that we have where does it make sense in terms in any new additions or constructions.” Superintendent Blane McCann said. “That was really the emphasis to sit down and look at our facilities really closely.”

After their meetings, DLR discovered the facilities that needed more attention and gathered a group of parents, teachers, administrators and community members to FCR a Facilities Task Force. The force reviews the DLR report and provides input to the district administration who then review their input and will deliver a recommendation to the Westside Board of Education in early 2015.

This project was started to keep the public up to date on what is happening, the Facilities Task team has created a Facebook page, a Twitter page and a new website. For more information about the project or their progress you can visit their website www.imagineadistrict.org, their twitter @WCS66Facilities or their Facebook account Westside 66 Facilities.

“We believe in power of social media and being able to communicate with people and how they communicate.” McCann said. “We are just trying to accommodate our community. As we move to the construction phases we will be able to provide our community with progress reports through whichever way they liked to stay up to date.”