Vacant rooms, new possibilities. With the opening of the new Creative Center for Visual Arts and Technology approaching, Hackley has begun converting multiple tech and art rooms into new spaces, which will be vacant as the classes are being transferred to the new center. Many members of the Hackley community are incredibly excited about the opportunities these rooms pose. However, the renovation of these various spaces has caused many interferences with classes and homeroom meetings. 

One of the largest classroom transformations is that of Melissa Tranchida, Head of the Computer Science Department. Her classroom will become the new main technology office, which is moving from the Middle School. The conversion of this room seemed incredibly practical as it was already used for technology-based classes and both Ms. Tranchida and Jed Dioguardi’s (Director of Technology) offices are attached to the room. This switch created an open space in the Middle School where the technology office once was. This room is going to become the new Middle School Library. This addition should help address the issue of the often overcrowding of the library as it is currently being used by both Upper and Middle school students. However, this transformation has left Jennifer Swan, Library Department Chair and Upper School Librarian, and Ms. Tranchida’s homeroom to be displaced from their usual meeting space. On the first day of homeroom, Ms. Swan said the students in her homeroom were confused about where to go. However, once the new building is opened they will begin to meet in Ms. Tranchida’s new classroom which is incredibly thrilling according to Ms. Swan.

 “We are very excited. Ms. Tranchida has already seen her classroom; I haven’t seen it yet. And I think it will be an easy transition because our homeroom is already used to walking all the way down here (Ms. Tranchida’s room) and now they just have to go out the door and walk down to the new building,” she said.

 A few computer science classes, such as AP Computer Science, have also been displaced due to the renovations of Ms. Tranchida’s classroom. Sophomore Nora Husseini is a student in Ms. Tranchida’s AP Computer Science class and her class has been relocated to Alison Baal’s and Noah Knopf’s classrooms. 

“There are no computers in the room and so we’re kind of just by ourselves, and the board sometimes doesn’t work,” Nora said. Despite that though, she believes that it hasn’t affected her learning too much.

With Visual Arts teachers Mark Green, Sarah Coble, and Greg Cice’s rooms relocating to the new building, there are opportunities for new classrooms and spaces. Mr. Green’s room is going to become the Upper School Deans’ office, allowing the deans to have more space. Mr. Cice’s room is becoming a Classics room, which was a very intentional move as his classroom is right next to the other Classics classroom. This will make each Classics room be in the same vicinity as one another as before they were not close to each other with the other classroom being in the college counseling hallway. While this change will be extremely beneficial to the Classics department, it has caused Mr. Cice’s classes to be relocated to the makerspace, which has caused disruptions in learning, especially to his AP Art students who are in the midst of completing their portfolios for the class. 

Ms. Coble’s classroom will become a new student study space, which will also help combat the issues of the constant overpopulation of students in the library. Robert Aldrich, Director of Operations and Campus Planning, said, “Ms. Coble’s room is high on the list [of the most extensive renovations].” This space will greatly benefit the students and their abilities to have more options of study spaces throughout the Upper School.

With all computer science classrooms being moved to the new building, Peter Wright and Jon Gruenberg’s math classrooms will be moving to Computer Science teachers Dan Shaw and Anne Budlong’s classrooms. This will allow all math classrooms to be in an even closer vicinity to one another and will create two vacant classrooms in the language hallway. These two classrooms will become the Modern Language Office and a Mandarin classroom. This move will allow all modern languages to be together in one hallway and will allow the department to have an office, something they didn’t have before.

These changes and renovations of now-vacant classrooms will be extremely beneficial to Hackley students despite the inconveniences some of them currently pose. These changes will help make Upper School classrooms more organized and will provide more space for students to spend time studying which will help solve the overcrowding of the library.