Fremont Middle School opens after summertime renovation
Fremont Middle School students began the school year Wednesday at a dramatically remodeled building.
As part of a $3.7 million summertime project at the Mundelein-area campus, classrooms received new interactive projectors, walls that can be written upon with erasable markers, new lighting, fresh carpet and storefront-style windows that look onto the hallways.
"The rooms were really dark, and (it) brightens them up," said Principal Krista Winkelman, who is starting her first year in that role after time as the school's associate principal.
Classrooms also have new furniture, including rolling desks that will let students shift into small groups more easily and gather in various formations around their teachers.
"They're just so flexible and fluid," Winkelman said.
Fremont Middle's fitness room was upgraded, too. Stationary bikes remotely connected to large hanging monitors take up the center of the room now, and new exercise equipment and free weights are scattered around the periphery.
"Those updates will help support student engagement and overall healthiness," spokesman Nick Brilowski said.
Classes at all three Fremont District 79 schools began Wednesday, but the middle school was the only campus that was renovated this summer.
Fremont Elementary School, which serves kindergartners through second-graders, is set to be renovated in summer 2019. Fremont Intermediate School, which serves third- through fifth-graders, will get a facelift in summer 2020.
The upgrades at the other two schools will be similar to what was done at Fremont Middle. But the work won't be as extensive because the intermediate and elementary buildings are much newer than the middle school, which opened in 1957.
All told, the work is expected to cost about $8 million. A $5.3 million state grant will help fund the efforts.