Hampshire's new high school to be district's largest

When Hampshire High School students step off their school buses and out of their cars for their first day of school next year, it will be at a huge new building four miles northeast of their current school -- in the middle of nowhere.

But the school that is taking shape on Hampshire's northeast side will soon become a hub of activity -- with 2,500 students, a 2,500-seat gymnasium, a 750-seat auditorium and 10 tennis courts.

The 392,000-square-foot behemoth at Big Timber and Ketchum roads is the size of six elementary schools and dwarfs the neighboring Gary D. Wright Elementary School that opened this year.

"This is by far the largest undertaking of a single building we've taken on at one time," Hampshire High School Principal Chuck Bumbales said. "We haven't built a building this big ever."

When Bumbales moves from his small office in the basement of the Hampshire High School/Middle School, so will hundreds of students who now attend Jacobs and Dundee-Crown high schools.

A series of ongoing attendance boundary meetings will decide where students will go to school next year. Whatever the outcome, one thing is clear -- cliques will be split up and high school sweethearts separated.

Jacobs and Dundee-Crown, both with more than 2,400 students this year, are nearly at capacity. Community Unit District 300 must shift some of these students to the new Hampshire High School, or many of them will have to go to class in mobile classrooms.

The new high school also will accommodate the coming tide of growth in the western part of District 300. Although the housing market has slowed, there are 10,000 homes that have been approved but not yet occupied throughout the district.

When the thousands of children who will live in those homes flood into local schools, the district will be ready.

The new high school is only the latest and biggest prong of the district's strategy to keep up with its growth.

The first prong -- elementary-school growth -- came on line this year with the opening of Gilberts and Gary D. Wright elementaries.

This year also witnessed the launch of the Fox Valley's first charter school, District 300's Cambridge Lakes Charter School.

The third prong -- middle-school growth -- also will affect the 1,200 students who now attend Hampshire High School/Middle School.

The downtown Hampshire building will become solely Hampshire Middle School when the new high school opens next year. Like Jacobs and Dundee-Crown, it too will undergo renovations to bring it into the 21st century.

All of the construction, including the $75 million Hampshire High School, was funded by two tax increases voters approved in 2005.

The most notable feature of the new high school is its size. The competition gym fits three full-size basketball courts and 2,500 people -- the entire student body.

In the athletic wing, there is a wrestling room. This may not seem notable, but it is for Hampshire, which doesn't have a wrestling program because of space and funding limitations.

One feature Bumbales is particularly proud of is the community lecture room on the second floor with seating for 100 people. The room can fit three classes or community groups that need meeting space.

The large kitchen will be able to prepare food not only for the high school, but also for Hampshire Middle School and Gary D. Wright.

The district also is using the high school as a showpiece for the latest building design and engineering techniques.

The walls of the fine arts rooms have ridges that mold the sound to the specifications of the acoustitician and engineer who designed the rooms.

The cooling system conserves energy by producing a semi-frozen slurry during off-peak hours and circulating air cooled by the slush during the day.

With all of these extras and with three floors of classroom space, one could imagine that the school would be difficult to navigate.

But Hampshire High School has been designed with the challenges of traversing the huge space in mind.

A long east-west hallway stretches from fine arts to industrial arts, seven staircases allow easy access to each floor and the school is divided by discipline, with science in one wing and foreign languages in another.

While District 300 labored to finish the new elementary schools and renovations at the high schools in time for the start of school this year, the district anticipates no such difficulties with Hampshire High School.

"We're definitely on target," Bumbales said. "We're on schedule."