Rooftop Opening!

On Friday the 18th the new rooftop opened up after being under construction for almost two years. Soon, students will be able to enjoy a beautiful brand-new environment to interact and relax. It is a charming outdoor space with seating for students to do work or just hang out and chill.. Bring a friend and enjoy a pleasant, fun afternoon!

You’re probably curious about what changes we have made to the rooftop! Our very own Urban Environment classes have come up with tons of good ideas to make the rooftop exceptional. The rooftop used to have chickens and we’re excited to bring those back. We want to have many kinds of flora and fauna, and maybe start a planting club? If you want to learn more about the roof and its history, read these teacher and student interviews! 

Teacher Interviews:

1. What are you most excited for about the rooftop opening?

Ms. Edge: I am excited about having a place where students and staff can connect with nature, relax, and take some much needed downtime. Time outside is very valuable, at HSES that is also our main mission.

Principal Deflorio: I think the most exciting part is that it's a large space where we can really gather and be outside as a community, but also the chickens that will be coming in the spring for sure!

Ms. Chan: I like seeing students of different grade levels interacting with the gardening or the chicken club or the bees, and also discovering a lot of hands-on activities that they wouldn't normally think of. 

2. When they found all the issues with the roof were you deterred or did you know it was gonna be a success?

Principal Deflorio: I was a little sad it wasn't gonna be on the original timeline but of course I wanted to make sure it was safe because that's our top priority, so if it was gonna make it the safest roof possible, great, take all the time you need. I really do think it was worth the wait!

Ms. Chan: The roof had a lot of issues, being a very old building, so there was the sloping, the leaking, the rats, a lot of things! Especially because the building is actually two buildings connected so we had to do a lot of remediation but I think it's been really good in the long run because now we're able to achieve our full potential. 

3. How involved do you think students will be in the creation and hanging out of the rooftop?

Ms. Edge: In my class urban environment the students designed the rooftop space, I fully believe their designs are gonna come to fruition up here. I think the design needs to be student led because there are the ones that are gonna come up here. 

4.  Everyone had really high expectations, do you think this rooftop has met everyone's expectations? 

Principal Deflorio: I think we're all really thrilled and I think that it does meet expectations so far and it's only gonna get better!

Ms. Chan: I think the setup is really good but there's gonna be a lot of student input and staff input in terms of how to use it most efficiently. We were talking about maybe showing a movie night or having rooftop dinner for a fundraiser or even kids interacting and caring for the chickens and the bees.

Student Interviews w/ Helena, Nina, and Zoe:

1. Why are you guys presenting? 

Zoe: We're presenting our design to try to get approval. We want everyone to know what is going on and our ideas. The main point of the presentation is to create a welcoming space for students that is also led by students. We want them to want to come up here, that's our main goal.

2. Is it a competition between you and the other urban environment design group?

Nina, Helena: No, not at all, we like their ideas too, I think we each have ideas that are good but it just kind of depends on what you want. I personally love all of the aspects of our design and in the long term can really create a welcoming space for the students. I also think that we realized the fact that if we do decide to use this design, it's only phase one. We will have $14,000  left over out of our $20,000 budget and we can use this money to keep maintaining the rooftop. And, based on what students want we can add and take away stuff as needed. I think it's important to realize that it's not one and we can always keep adding more. Another big aspect of our community building ideas for the roof is having a mural painting club so students can express creativity and be together.