The bell rings, it’s 8 a.m. and each science room can hear deafening noises coming from the hallway outside. The Residential Maintenance class taught by Mr. Gusso is beginning a construction project on the learning stations in the science hallway.

Mr Gusso, a teacher in the agriculture department, is the teacher leading the charge on this project. It is his first year of teaching and so far he is enjoying it. He teaches Basic Woods, Carpentry, Advanced Woods, Metals I, Intro to Trades, and of course Residential Maintenance.

The goal of the project is “to be able to see down the hallway without obstructing vision and without being obtrusive,” said Mr. Gusso. The project is expected to be finished just after winter break on Jan. 4.

Mr. Gusso wants students to understand that “you don’t always have to call someone to do simple projects at home,” adding that projects like this are easy enough to do by yourself if you can learn them in school first.

The high school principal Mr. Bergmann was also asked about the reasoning. “Security reasons primarily, I can’t see beyond this wall and so I can’t see this whole set of lockers so that would be the main reason,” he said. Residential maintenance was given the project because of the level of “importance and potential education experience,” Bergmann said.

Day one of the project began on Dec. 14. The wall construction starts with an email being written off to all the teachers in the science hallway to give them a heads-up on the future construction within the hallway. The reason is that it might be disruptive to all of the classrooms.

After the email was written and sent off, the class was split into different groups of four to go look at the walls to prepare and make a plan of attack to complete the project. Once all groups have had a chance to come up with a plan, it became time to work. They were then divided into two groups for each wall to work on completion.

The first day of work was to clear the area and disassemble the TVs and such to work in a clean area and to avoid ruining things. After the wall was cleared the students began to cut into the sheet rock to see within the wall in order to avoid ruining anything within. Next, they chalked a line around the whole wall to get an outline of where to start cutting down on the wall. 

Day two began on Dec. 15. The day started with cutting into the lines that were created to guide them through to a solid level wall. Once the lines were cut the students were free to hit a hammer against the drywall to get access to it. Once all sides were stripped of the drywall the students unscrewed the fastenings that were in place. 

Day three began on Dec. 18. Class started with finishing reducing all the drywall to its skeleton. Leaving just the metal studs standing, the students began cutting the metal pillars down to length with some snips so that the wall was officially 6 inches lower.

Days four and five began on Dec. 19 and 20 respectively. They included cleaning up the metal studs that were to be cut down so that they were all level and clean. The same was done with the drywall as well.

This project is still ongoing, so if you are interested, it could be cool to stop by and check out the progress that residential maintenance is making on something that impacts our whole school!