‘I can focus better’: Students compliment Hampton High School addition

If the goal of expanding Hampton High School is to enhance the educational experience, junior Isabella English can provide a ringing endorsement.

“I’ve actually improved my grades because of it,” she said. “I have a new place to study and I can focus better, without any distractions in the classroom. If kids are goofing off, I can just come here, find some peace and quiet, and work.”

She was among the many students greeting guests during a Feb. 9 open house and ribbon-cutting ceremony for the recently completed addition to the building, highlighted by the Gail V. Litwiler Media Center, named for a longtime school board member.

Freshman Olivia Zebrine joined Isabella in praising the center.

“I really like it because I can get out of a classroom environment,” she said. “Sometimes it feels so static and just the same in every classroom. Once you’re in here, it’s all open and you’re in a new environment, and you feel like you can be free to do your work and not feel like you’re enclosed by all the other students.”

Other sections of the addition include a multimedia studio, classrooms for English and special education, and a new location for the student-run café, the Busy Bean.

A major impetus for the café is to provide life skills and experiences, according to special education teacher Lynn Camilli.

“We go to Sam’s Club once a month. They shop for the food,” she said. “They prepare the coffee. They stock. They run the cash register. We’re setting up a job board and a time clock where they can punch in and out.”

All students have the opportunity to participate in operating the Busy Bean, which opens on school days at 8 a.m., 20 minutes before classes start, and runs through third period. Proceeds go into the special education budget.

Near the café is what’s called the Conceptual Thinking Lab, stocked with dry-erase whiteboards and a flexible array of furniture to help inspire creativity, especially in group projects.

“It’s a room built for collaboration and feedback and brainstorming,” English teacher Shannon Roos said. “It’s great when you have kids working on projects together or they’re giving each other feedback, because they can work through their ideas is real time. Especially with all the whiteboarding, they can track their progress as they’re going.”

Students in her Advanced Placement research class attended the Feb. 9 event to discuss projects they are developing and ask visitors to take surveys that can help the cause. Junior Tiffany Habib, for example, is examining the viability of remote “telepsychiatry” in the Allegheny County Jail system as a means to increase the availability of mental health services.

Classmate Justine Sullivan’s research is on alternative voting methods, although she’s not old enough to cast a ballot quite yet.

“In the U.S., we often have people upset with elections,” she said. “It’s gotten really heated, very polarized lately, and I’ve been trying to see if this problem could be stemming from the way our election system is structured.”

For the better part of two centuries, practical choices mainly have been limited to candidates of the two major political parties.

“Often, people don’t really want to vote for a certain candidate and tend to vote against one, more so,” Justine said. “So I’m exploring alternative voting methods and seeing if there might be another way that could make people happier with the results.”

As a possibility for circumventing the two-party system, she mentioned ranked-choice voting, which is implemented in Alaska and Maine for congressional and presidential elections, and in more than 20 U.S. cities for local races.

Whatever she and the other AP researchers eventually ascertain, the Conceptual Thinking Lab is demonstrative of Hampton’s commitment toward public education since the township’s first one-room schoolhouse was built in 1862, according to district Superintendent Michael Loughead.

The current high school opened in 1970, he said, as a state-of-the-art learning center.

“We’re standing on the shoulders of those teachers, those community members who believed in public education and knew that to learn, you need a space that’s conducive to learning and a space that is future-focused,” Loughead said. “And it’s for the students. It’s for their future.”