There are many great changes to highlight as we enter the 2024-25 school year at HBR!
One of the changes is to the role that I play in serving the Hinckley-Big Rock school community. I now serve as the Director of Operations overseeing our safety practices, buildings, grounds, technology, and transportation. Diving into this role has made me even more grateful and proud of the staff we have serving our students and families in behind the scenes roles as bus drivers, custodians, maintenance, and technology personnel. These staff members take ownership of our schools and are focused each day on making HBR a safe, clean, well-operating place for our students to learn, our staff to teach, and our community to be proud to enter as they cheer on our teams or host community events.
This summer we made several updates to all three buildings in the initial phase of our Facilities Improvement Project. Some highlights include:
New secure entrances to the high school and district office.
ADA accessible entrances at all three buildings in the district.
Security window coverings that allow vision out of the building but not into our classrooms.
A refinished gym floor, new bleachers, and an additional interior exit door from the gym at the middle school.
A new folding glass wall for the middle school cafeteria that provides for greater flexibility of use and a brighter, more inviting atmosphere for our students and staff.
New HVAC work at the elementary school will provide much-needed improvement to the heating and cooling of the building. The final stage of this work will occur in October with the installation of a new chiller unit.
Expanded parking at the middle school including updated basketball hoops, parking lot lighting, and concrete walkways.
New carpeting, paint, and design of the high school library space.
Many areas of increased sound-proofing to improve teaching and learning across the district.
I am excited about these changes and more to come as I work with our operations team this year! Please feel free to reach out to me with any questions or feedback about the work we are doing to improve the facilities at HBR.
Thank you,
Brandon Kriesch
Director of Operations
bkriesch@hbr429.org
