Head of School's Blogs

What's That Big Thing?

by William H. GERRITZ 11 November, 2009

As  our new building  grows  behind the high school, I thought parents might want to know about its purposes, contents, "greenness" and progress.  In recent years, our learning programs in the performing arts (music, drama, dance) have expanded beyond the current building's capacity. One visit to a middle school band class with 60 students crammed so they can barely wriggle shows the problem. Dance, drama and other music programs have similar crowding.  This space problem has been created by our performing arts teachers!  Their wonderful work with students has built enrollments and increased learning quality.  Another purpose for the building, our high school has too few classrooms, forcing teacher to share and leading to decreased learning for our students. 

The Cultural Center will add 25% to our total learning space in the school. The elements of building include:

• 300  seat theater

• Chorus, band, string rooms, drama and dance rooms, for middle and high school - 10 spaces in all

• 28 music practice rooms, a music lab and ensemble room  

• 23 classrooms.

The Center is the result of a multi-year planning effort lead by our Deputy Head of School Ugo Costessi and performing arts teachers lead by Marianne Derouw .

With strong support from the Board of Trustees, the Center is being built to the US Green Building Council's  (USGBC)  Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards, aiming for a Gold Award. USGBC is the main green building accrediting agency in the US and the Center will be the first Gold building if Thailand if we are successful.  What makes the building green? ----  sustainable sites, water efficiency, energy efficiency,  environmentally friendly materials and so on.

The Center will cost 380 million Baht  and is scheduled  for completion in May next year, with full occupancy at the beginning of next school year.  So far,  the project is on budget, on time, and with 560,000 worker hours, accident free.

 As performing arts classes move into the Center, they will vacate space in the existing structure, thus opening up new opportunities to expand and improve other school programs. As head of school for example, I am strongly advocating that we open an Invention Center. This will be a place where students interested in engineering and science would be able,  at least after school and on weekends, to  pursue projects and experiments. See my blog at http://www.isb.ac.th/Head_of_School_s_Blogs/Nerds_at_ISB/default.aspx , if you would like to know more about this new learning opportunity.

 While we are more than busy with managing the Center's construction and planning for the best use of the vacated space, we have another big project underway as well.  How will we improve our athletic facilities  -- swimming pool, gyms, track and so on?

By the way, seven ISB families have made contributions for the building ---- giving them  "naming rights" to classrooms.  If you would be interested in having a room named after your family, please contact me (billg@isb.ac.th or +66 081 845 7397). Later this year, you will also have the opportunity to have a theater seat named for your family.

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