McHenry West High School’s $44 million expansion nearly complete, ready for upcoming year

An expansion of McHenry West High School backed by a $44 million referendum passed by voters in 2017 is almost complete and ready for students to take advantage of when the new school year starts next week.

While parts of the new 70,000-square-foot addition opened earlier this year during hybrid learning, it now is near the finish line, with classrooms for advanced computing, engineering, robotics, manufacturing, construction, broadcasting and biomedical equipment at the ready on the addition’s bottom floor.

The three-story building also includes several common areas and seating in wide hallways that can be used as “extensions of the classroom,” McHenry High School District 156 Superintendent Ryan McTague said during a tour of the addition Tuesday.

The new space has been dubbed the Center for Science, Technology and Industry and its opening is part of the reason the district changed how grades are structured across its two campuses.

East campus will house freshmen only starting this academic year while West campus will house the other grades. West Campus will now be called the Upper Campus.

[ Photos: Tour of McHenry West High School’s $44 million expansion ]

The change was meant to provide all students an equal opportunity to access the new facilities and technology now available at the Upper Campus, McTague said.

“You can’t replicate this in two buildings,” he said, adding that freshmen-only schools are also becoming more common and have been found to facilitate successful introductions to high school.

In addition to the hands-on learning environment, the new center features large spaces to hold student clubs and gatherings or where extra classrooms can be set up. A handful of traditional classrooms are also available, some attached to chemistry labs.

It also features a 500-square-foot greenhouse, a 700-square-foot EcoDeck for outdoor growing and experimentation, and a graphics printing studio that can produce logos for shirts and custom vinyl wraps to decorate vehicles, among other tasks.

The printing studio is run as a business, and McTague said local manufacturers and business leaders advised the school on how to set up its machine shops and hands-on learning spaces to imitate how private sector workspaces function.

McTague said partnerships between the school and regional businesses are important for the students to be made aware of, so they know working opportunities exist and that great ideas and big-time businesses have been and can still can be started right in their hometown.

One such reminder is a drawing on one wall of the center that pays homage to the McHenry-based Miller Formless company, which is a leading provider of mid-sized automated slipform paving machines.

“This would not have been possible without the work of our school community and invaluable input from our administrators, educators and families,” District 156 school board President Dawn Bremer said in a news release. “We are looking forward to watching students make great use of this new center and all McHenry High School has to offer.”

McTague said the center was designed intentionally to produce a flow of ideas students could observe, as they can evolve from conception and, as needed, undergo analysis and tinkering by students pursuing paths into engineering, software programming, hardware development and fabrication, construction, manufacturing and biomedical sciences – all within the same hallway.

The upgrades “put us on the map,” McTague said, adding he and other school officials are proud of the remodel and believe it will give local learners a competitive advantage in starting strong post-secondary careers and securing spots in top colleges, universities and other post-secondary education programs.

He said he thinks the equipment and space offered to the students rivals most top high schools in the state as well as some community colleges.

McHenry Mayor Wayne Jett, a District 156 graduate, agreed the addition will provide a leg-up to teens.

“Students will be far more prepared than many of their counterparts,” Jett said in a news release.

In all, the addition added 33 new classrooms and educational spaces, and its construction also was accompanied by work to renovate about 25,000 existing square feet in the school system. Upgrades to East Campus infrastructure have continued alongside the new construction, too, McTague said.

A total of 77,400 construction hours went into the Upper Campus project and crews poured 2,800 cubic yards of concrete, or enough to fill up McHenry High’s swimming pool more than four times, and they installed 10,500 square feet of glass, an equivalent to 25 residential greenhouses, according to a District 156 pamphlet.