Photo by Mia Montelibano
By Noah Kehlenbach
On the week of August 15, the first Willow students stepped into the long-awaited new addition to the newly named Willow School’s trio of campuses. This building, formerly the home of Sci-Hi, had been under renovation for longer than anticipated after COVID and Hurricane Ida delayed construction progress, but the wait has paid off.
With the opening of the new building, called the Marsalis Campus, all of the teachers in elementary, middle, and high schools now have more space. Last year, most of the teachers at the Freret Campus had to share rooms with other teachers because the plan had been for the new building to be open by then to accommodate a growing number of students. Teachers at all campuses can now add a personal touch to their own rooms.
“My environment is extremely important to me,” said high school English and Publications teacher Ms. Crockett. “Moving from room to room, I never felt it was worth it to invest in plants if I’m only in a given space a couple hours a day. Now I’m in one room all the time, I’ve got tons of plants, and I feel a lot more comfortable in my space. I think students like it, too.”
The new building was renovated with great attention to historic detail while also updating everything to the needs of a growing 21st century school. Middle school Assistant Principal Elizabeth Sepanik said, “We have a brand new blacktop equipped with basketball courts and multiple four-square grids. To me, our campus feels like a park. It has beautiful trees with picnic tables for outdoor eating spots. It has a gorgeous foyer to welcome visitors. It also has a theater equipped with a new sound system. The historic windows in the library are stunning. There are so many extra details to the new building. We are also adding a new dance studio. There are music rooms, an engineering room, and so much more!”
The new campus hasn’t only helped with space at the high school and middle school, which formerly shared a building. Since the fifth grade has now joined the middle school, the elementary school also has room to spread out. The move gives fifth graders a bit of a head start on middle school rigor, helping them learn what to expect throughout the rest of middle school and high school.
“Adding fifth grade has been a natural fit for our middle school,” Sepanik said. “I sincerely enjoy working with the fifth grade students and their families. The fifth grade teachers have added so much to our middle school. We are grateful they are part of our team!”
“Though we miss our fifth graders on the elementary campus,” K-4 math interventionist Ms. Ruf said, “we have gotten to use the newly available space in some great ways. Ms. Toups, our TAV teacher, finally has a space to call her own, and Ms. Morris moved into a full-sized classroom instead of an office. Ms. Kerrigan and Ms. Webb are able to use classrooms for larger groups.”
In addition to everyone having more space at all campuses now, the new building has also helped with traffic. With middle and high school sharing a building with the same arrival time, traffic has been an ongoing issue. Now, with the sixth and seventh graders moved to the new building, parents have the additional street of Loyola to drive on, whereas, in years past, all traffic for grades 6-12 was concentrated on Freret, Nashville, and Joseph Streets.
“It’s great to be in a new building and to have our own space,” middle school Spanish teacher Ms. Robinson said. “It really enables the middle school teachers to tailor what we do to our students’ unique needs based on their ages. I think we’ll really be able to build on the culture we’ve already created to build something truly unique for middle school, and the new building plays a huge role in that.”
