By Jason Klaiber

Staff Writer

Fayetteville-Manlius High School held a celebration for its renovated library media center on Dec. 10.

The occasion was marked with a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by students, staff members and district leaders.

The renovations had been part of a $45.2 million facilities project approved by district taxpayers in December 2017, an undertaking that also included upgraded student bathrooms.

Architects broke ground this past spring, wrapped up the majority of work by the fall and will continue with touch-ups in the days ahead.

“Because we were off for summer vacation, it just impacted the end of one school year and the start of this current school year,” Superintendent Dr. Craig Tice said.

In the meantime, the library’s materials relocated temporarily to the high school’s wrestling gymnasium.

The school permitted students and staff members to re-enter the library in October after it closed in early June.

“We needed to get the books on the shelves and get in here,” Mary Patroulis, the school’s library media specialist, said. “It was so important to be ready for the students and the faculty.”

The roughly 9,000-square-foot multi-functional space can accommodate up to 200 students at a time.

“It’s an awesome environment where students are able to come together and work together in a really welcoming space,” Dr. Raymond Kilmer, the principal of the high school, said. “It’s jam-packed from the morning when we first open to the afternoon when classes are over. The space is being fully utilized.”

The media center features a café area, with drinking fountains and restrooms, where a faculty lounge previously stood.

“That seems like a small thing, but those were the main reasons kids had to leave the library,” Patroulis said. “It’s easier for them. They don’t have to walk five minutes down the hall.”

Students are also allowed to use the renovated facility during lunch.

“Sometimes they need to eat lunch and do homework,” Patroulis said.

She said the library staff’s desks separate the quieter and more social sides of the center, allowing her and her colleagues to be more accessible.

The newly renovated library also comprises three self-contained classrooms with collapsible walls.

“It used to be if a teacher had a class in the library, they would have to teach their class adjacent to students who were studying, and so there was always a noise issue, and it was very distracting,” Patroulis said.

The library media center also includes a communal makerspace for those working on projects like dioramas as well as a small conference room currently being used for meetings with representatives from colleges.

Books can be loaded onto an e-reader or selected from stacks of shelved hard copies.

The new center also encompasses upholstered chairs, height-adjustable standing desks, lounge seating, a digital learning center and games like chess for all to use.

“I would like to thank the board of education and community for supporting this incredible project,” Kilmer said. “Our hope was to design a space that brings students together so they can collaborate with one another.”

Tice said the “flexible” and “state-of-the-art” space now has revamped lighting and looks like a college library.

The next phase of the district’s facilities project will be focusing on Wellwood Middle School.

Construction on the middle school, set to begin in spring 2020, will be defined by a 15,000-square-foot addition, an enlarged parking lot, asbestos abatement and infrastructure upgrades to existing classrooms, new athletic fields and a new main entrance facing Fayetteville Elementary School.