Not wanting their kids to fall behind their cohorts in their future workplaces, ThunderRidge High School parents and principal Carole Jennings got behind the idea of renovating the roughly 5,000-square-foot library into a digital learning center.
The goal was to create a space that encouraged students to work together more and utilize state-of-the-art technology.
“(The business world) needs students who can collaborate and use technology in a way that will allow them to problem solve and be much more efficient,” said Paula Busey, head librarian at ThunderRidge.
Jennings and parents in the ThunderRidge Education Partnership, an arm of the Douglas County Educational Foundation, began work on the design and fundraising for the new library about a year and a half ago.
The new digital learning center includes 30 Apple MacBook Pros, 30 Chromebooks and about 20 hard-wired Macs. It also features tables and chairs that can move easily, which Lenna Busey, 18, a senior at ThunderRidge (and Paula Busey’s daughter), said is important for collaborating with her peers and also for more easily finding her own study space.
“I think myself and other people are warming up to it more, and the furniture’s a little more moveable and the laptops can be a pain, but we like them more than the computers because we can move around more,” Lenna Busey said.
Jennings said the idea for the library came as early as 2½ years ago amid budget cuts. She, the teachers and parents were trying to think of ways to make the students’ education more innovative while preparing them for the future workplace and jobs that don’t exist yet. She wanted to bring the business world into the school.
“We felt the new digital learning center would be the hub of the school,” Jennings said. “We completely transformed what most of us recognize as a library and included more media in Internet format.”
There also are two TV screens in the library capable of linking students to business leaders and educators at universities and colleges through the video conference program Skype so they can access their insight and career advice.
“It impacts all content areas of our school, and our kids have adapted to it very quickly,” Jennings said. “Our adults have struggled with old ideas of ‘this is a library and this is what you do here,’ instead of how can they bridge their learning to the real world.”
The entire first phase, which was recently completed, cost $134,000, with $30,000 being raised by parents, $50,000 coming from school improvement funds, $25,000 from one-time school innovation funds and $25,000 carried over from ThunderRidge’s budget last year.
Karen Barker, co-president of the ThunderRidge Education Partnership, said $60,000 of the total cost was for infrastructure and was not paid for by parent-funded money because Jennings thought that should be a school expense. Overall, the school and parents raised $150,000.
Barker said it was difficult getting buy-in from the parents at first because parent-led groups are usually unheard of at the high school level. But since they had a booster club for athletics, they wanted one for academics, as well.
“The piece that we felt we wanted was to reach out to students interested in arts and science and technology and math, and that every piece was brought in,” Barker said.
Jennings said phase two will include huddle rooms, glass boxes in corners where students can collaborate quietly, and future centers linking students to career possibilities. Phase three probably will include a recording studio.
All told, she predicts the entire project to cost $500,000 and the phases will come as fast as money is raised.
Clayton Woullard: 303-954-2671, cwoullard@denverpost.com or
