A couple of years ago, the voter in the Howell School District (me included) voted in a sizable bond, to build a second high school (the first 2 high school district in Livingston County). It just so happens that it is (sort of) around the block from us. We live in a pretty rural area, and the new school property is about a quarter mile as the crow flies. The school is a deal further though. Still it is likely that my boys will be able to cut through the back yard, hit a trail, and be at the school a good deal faster than if they drove or took the bus. Pretty convenient.
Naturally, for 2 years we have been dealing with the construction of the school and site. The district has gone out of their way to minimize the impact of the immediate neighbors. Some of this has been building berms, planting trees, replacing damaged areas and so on. I really give them big time props for their effort. It is interesting to watch how they have done this, because this area has a lot of farmers who are always decrying progress and “all of those new comers.” Even they seemed pleased with it.
Lat night we got our first walkthrough of the finished product. All I can say is that high schools have come a long way. They have business partners that operate in the school. THere is a 24 hour Credit Union that will be student managed. There is a pre-school/day care that will be student managed. There will be a convenience store that will be student managed. Also there is a wing that the district has leased out to Lansing Community College so that LCC can operate a satellite wing inside of the high school. This will give HS students an accessible opportunity to take college courses while in high school. The Howell School District will be the first district in Michigan to offer a voluntary 5th year of HS and the opportunity to graduate with a diploma and an associate’s degree simultaneously. They told us last night that they could see that alone could save a family $20,000.00. Pretty cool. They are also going to institute a “flex-schedule” thing for juniors and seniors that allow them to have…well…a flexible schedule rather than the traditional 8-2 school day.
The only thing I was a little disappointed with was the Field House and the Athletic Facilities. My kids swim withe local age group swim team, and we travel to a lot of the surrounding schools and see a lot of their facilites. One of the things they are doing is building HUGE facilites, and then opening them to the public on a membership basis, much like a health club. This is something our area needs in my opinion. And it is something that could have been more easily done from the get-go rather than as an afterthought. The memberships could have helped move the facility to being revenue neutral, especially if they would have built some banquet halls and convention centers as I have seen at other places.
All in all, it seems like it is very cool. The people in the area seem excited which is a far cry from the NIMBY folks that I expected.
Actually the pool is something a little different. They alreaday have a community pool at the Aquatics Center. In that case the district had first use, then it was for public. Of course there was always a battle for time and pool temperature and all of the usual. Now, with the new pool, the district is going to use the new pool for a competition pool only and the Aquatics center will be for community use. It is not a bad plan in my mind. I am just hoping that the Master’s Program they are trying to get off the ground has enough clout to get into the competition pool.
Sounds like they are doing a good job. Too many times they screw up the pools when they build the schools and make it difficult to host meets. I was through the Howell area not long ago and was amazed at all of the construction.
What team do your kids swim for? My girls swam for the Macomb Marlins ages ago so I probably done swim parent time in many of the same pools. Many fond memories of those days
I know some people who work at Rockford HS on the west side of the state. They originally built the $70 million High School of the Future with a 33 yard long pool because the architect felt like putting a full 50M pool in there ruined the lines of the building. I’m told that with the bulkhead it worked out well enough for short course swimming and water polo, but that it took years and a very active parents group several years to get the district to draw up plans to go back and redo the aquatics complex as a 50M facility, building lines be damned.
Pools are hard to build there are few people who really know how to build a good pool and even fewer who can MANAGE a comp pool in order to break even, especially in michigan.
I live in phoenix AZ and our pools are NOT year round. In San Diego there are year round pools all over the place. Trust me, Phoenix is way better to be outside swimming in December and January than San Diego. It takes a great deal of foresite to get a facilty from the get go.
Look at Lifetime Fitness. The lap pools they are building are H-O-R-R-I-B-L-E!!! Its hard to beileve that a profit driven place would build pool after pool and not adjust to the mistakes they are making in “swimmers” minds.
I’m way too drunk to keep on like this so I’m going to bed. Good luck trying to figure out what is it I’m saying in this post! Glad you have such a nice school for your kids!
They swim for the Howell Sea Serpents. They are part of the SMSL swim league and aren’t USS. Although there is some talk about it.
I thought it would be good to talk about something that our district seems to be doing right. It is really easy to cast blame and point out the bad things. Also I thought that maybe there would be someone who was in an area where they were starting the process of building a new high school. Maybe they could use the Howell School District as a research point because they are doing some really innovative things.
**Pools are hard to build there are few people who really know how to build a good pool and even fewer who can MANAGE a comp pool in order to break even, especially in michigan. **
Well the verdict is still out about the management. It seems as though the manager of the Community based Aquatics Center will manage the competition pool too. The were pretty close on the breaking even at that pool for years. I have no idea what their plan is to run both pools. It will certainly be easier to get pool time for lap swimming and open swims. Also the age group swim time won’t have to compete for pool time, which will be great.
I have never done an swimming at Lifetime Fitness, so I can’t comment on their model.
LaWoof, you actually did pretty good with a “drunk post.” It has been awhile since we have had someone who was openly posting drunk. Pretty cool.