Long-Awaited High School Addition Breaks Ground

Parents, teachers, school board members and local politicians came out to Webster Groves High School on Tuesday to witness the official groundbreaking ceremony for the building addition to the high school.

Webster Groves Mayor Gerry Welch, state Rep. Jeanne Kirkton, D-Webster Groves, and Shrewsbury Mayor Felicity Buckley attended the event along with past board of education members.

“This is a long-awaited addition to our high school,” Welch said. “Education is an anchor of this community and this addition will only make it stronger.”

The more than $21 million building, designed by Wight and Company and contracted to SM Constuction, will be a four-floor addition on the north end of the school. Webster Groves High School Principal John Clark said he “got chills just thinking about it.”

After a rendition of the school's fight song by the band, school board president Mike Kearny, Superintendent Sarah Riss, as well as teachers from high school addressed the crowd about the potential of the new structure and the future of education in the district.

Jeanette Henckey, an 18-year teacher of chemistry and forensic science, said the new rooms will be a blessing. “I teach in a former storeroom,” Henckey said. “I’ll have a great big classroom for the first time in 18 years here.”

The addition is set to begin official construction immediately and is scheduled to open in the fall of 2012.

New Addition Layout:

• Ground level: industrial arts (auto repair, drafting)
• Second level: art classrooms and fine arts; includes new space for band practice and theatre students.
• Third level: Social studies; 12 new classrooms will house the entire social studies department.
• Fourth level: science labs; science classrooms will fill the top level, which will increase access and equipment for all areas of the science department.