Malcolm Gorrill
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Mar 10/00) - More windows and better use of light and space are two features of the renovations nearing completion at Sir John Franklin high school.

Work at the 42-year-old school is scheduled to be completed by the beginning of the next school year in September, but significant changes have already occurred.

For instance, the ceiling over the hall next to the gymnasium has been lifted several feet to allow for windows. The gym itself, plus many classrooms, now boasts glass along part of the walls to provide a more open atmosphere. And some stairways have been reworked so as to not be so steep.

The school's principal, Anne-Mieke Cameron, says some of the ongoing changes are a direct result of student input.

"When I became principal three years ago, my very first day with my staff required us to have a meeting with engineers and architects and planners about what is our school going to be like, how can we renovate our school.

"And I invited students to that very first staff meeting, too. And those students, and others later, became part of the workshops when we said, 'OK, what should Sir John Franklin look like? What's wrong with the way things are now and how should things change?'" Cameron says.

"The students pointed out a couple of really key things. One was that it was a dark school -- long dark tunnels, dark hallways, hardly any light coming in.

"For example, the whole science wing had no windows."

Cameron says students also complained about steep staircases.

"What the kids wanted, what the students pointed out and so did staff, was we need more flow in the building because we have bottlenecks," Cameron says.

"There is a real sense of curve and flow, it's not a linear building. There are rounded rooms and there are rounded corners."

Come the fall Sir John Franklin will boast another important feature.

"We needed a new heart to the building," Cameron says. "The library in the old Sir John was at the top, at the end of the building, at the top of the rock. That's because Sir John was built in stages, it was built in four stages, and the library came last.

"So one big decision that was made in our workshops three years ago was we need the centre -- or the throb, or the heart -- of the building to be in the library, the resource centre.

"So what you'll see is the library is a two-storey complex. It's a resource centre, actually, that houses computers and provides opportunities for Internet research as well as book research."

In effect, Cameron says, "We've really changed the way we think in the school."

Referring to a portable at Sir John Franklin in which teacher Andrea Code has tried to recreate the feel of a one-room country schoolhouse, Cameron says her hope is the entire school will hang onto those values.

These values, she says, include "caring, commitment, family, and taking care of each other and being responsible to each other."

Cameron says, "In the heart of it all, it's about relationships, and you have to mean something to each other. You have to be guardians of one another."

The principal points out all too often a school can be just a building.

"I see us as a community high school," she says. "We've always had a lot of community flow through our school. Our gym is used every day of the week, every evening it's booked out to the community."

Cameron says the renovations will make the school even more accessible to the community.

"We have the gym at one end. The home economics and catering service are at one end. We have NACC, Northern Arts and Cultural Centre -- which is also our drama program -- next to the food and catering centre.

"So we can provide the community of Yellowknife when they come in," the principal says.

"With the library in the centre of the school, the thinking is not only can people come and use the gym, but they can also come and use the library facility once it's ready."