Trinity-Byrnes celebrates opening of new building
By Samantha Lyles, Staff Writer, slyles@newsandpress.net
Trinity-Byrnes Collegiate School recently celebrated the completion of a new building that will allow its student body a bit of room to ease those growing pains, and allow the school to allocate improved classroom spaces for its science and math curriculum.
“We’ve been growing quite rapidly for the past few years. I’ve been here for seven years, and we’ve gone from 99 students to 273 students….and our goal is toward 300-plus students. That growth has precipitated the idea that we need more space, and particularly an area where we can expand our math and science programs with more classroom space,” said Ed Hoffman, Head of School for Trinity-Byrnes.
Trinity-Byrnes offers 15 Advanced Placement courses, and a number of rigorous college preparatory courses focused on the growing STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) field of study.
Hoffman says the new building provides 5 new classrooms – 3 of which feature dedicated science labs. The labs are both wet labs (with sinks and ventilation systems, suitable for biology, chemistry, etc.) and dry labs (suitable for subjects like physics).
“We’ve always been very focused on STEM. We were the first school in the area where our kids all had iPads, and that was about six years ago. The campus has wifi access all over the facility. We just really needed more lab space,” Hoffman said.
Classrooms were designed for groups of 12 to 18 students, maintaining Trinity-Byrnes’ commitment to keeping class size small. Teachers were consulted about their classroom needs, as well as their preferences for equipment and furnishings. As a result, some classrooms have a traditional setup with desks facing an interactive Promethean board, while others use high tables and stools for easier group work during lab projects. Hoffman said the faculty has been thrilled with their new workspaces, and Trinity-Byrnes teachers readily agree.
“Oh, my gosh! I feel like a queen!” says Rebecca Conway, biology and environmental science instructor. “The older lab I was working in, the ventilation was getting kind of old. But in this new building, we just did a dissection lab this morning and you couldn’t even tell. There were no fumes or anything. It’s just the quality of the updated rooms, they are really nice.”
Conway adds that the new classrooms took the little details into consideration as well – things that make everyday teaching a bit easier.
“In the old lab, I didn’t have enough electrical outlets for the microscopes for all the kids to use, because it was just built during a different time and the code was different. In this new facility, I can plug in twelve microscopes with no problem,” says. “That might not seem like a big deal, but it really is when you’re trying to teach sixteen kids.”
The school also required a dining hall, as students had been taking their meals in the gym, which also served as a multi-purpose room for sports and theater activities. The spacious new cafeteria was designed with a contoured drop ceiling to cut down on the echoing clatter of a normal dining hall, and the room is surrounded by tall windows to flood the space with natural light. The entire building is floored with a durable wood-look vinyl flooring which gives a warmer feel than traditional tile. The building also features two seminar rooms and a meeting space.
“I think everybody loves it. It gives them more elbow room, more of a chance to spread out,” said Hoffman, noting that there are no lockers in the new building’s hallway but there are new banks of lockers in the dining hall to allow for future expansion.
“Lockers aren’t really as much in vogue as they used to be. Now, it’s more of a place to hang your coat, so the cafeteria has about 40 lockers that we’ll eventually put to use,” Hoffman said.
With an eye toward meeting current and future needs, the Trinity-Byrnes Board of Trustees established the Growing in Excellence campaign and embarked on a capital-raising effort in the spring of 2017. A groundbreaking ceremony for the new building was held on May 24, with officials from the school joining with representatives of First Reliance Bank, USDA Rural Development, and Hunter Builders to celebrate the project’s official kickoff. Financing was secured through a combination of contributions from individual and corporate donors, a $2 million loan from USDA, and financing through First Reliance. The structure was completed in about seven months, and a ribbon cutting ceremony was held on January 10 to dedicate the finished facility.
In total, the building offers 12,000 square feet of space – plenty of room to host everything from high-level science labs to math to ESL classes. Hoffman said the project brought the added benefit of an additional 50 parking spaces, which further eased the campus’ elbowroom problem.
With the new building completed, Hoffman said Trinity-Byrnes will now turn its attention toward other development projects at their Hoffmeyer Road campus, including an enclosed courtyard, sports facilities and a performing arts space.
To learn more about Trinity-Byrnes Collegiate School, visit them online at www.trinitybyrnes.org, or call 843-395-9124.
