Students returned on the Monday after Thanksgiving break to one big change at Prospect, a full redesign of the school library, the Knights’ Learning Center (KLC). Brand new chairs, tables and booths have been introduced, replacing the previous wooden tables and chairs.

Over the summer the school identified that they needed to upgrade the furniture and carpet to match the current needs of students, so funds were allocated by District 214 for the project. The design process began in August and Associate Principal Frank Mirandola collaborated with the furniture company to select things like the color scheme, finishes, chair styles, table styles and layout.

According to Mirandola, they wanted to diversify the seating options to align with the evolving needs of students to collaborate with classmates and use IPads while also maintaining the high capacity. There are new “living room” style seating areas, high top tables, study carrels, booths and benches that Mirandola says provide a study environment different from the traditional classroom setup.

Mirandola worked with Head Librarian Christie Sylvester to identify what types of seating students gravitated toward in the past and how they could design the layout to keep some areas more quiet. The KLC is a place where large staff meetings happen, where students study and where some students spend time during their lunch period, so the design needed to accommodate all of those needs as well.

“By the way in which you set things up, it becomes a little more communal and more collaborative. And so when you have the furniture, it supports that and people can engage in that type of behavior,” Mirandola said.

According to Mirandola, the change has been embraced by students and he can already see how popular the new seating is with students.

“It brings me a lot of joy seeing the excitement with the new furniture, but also how it’s being utilized. I think everyone’s used to kind of your standard tables, but this kind of diversifies it,” Mirandola said.

The new layout with cleaner aisle lines also makes the KLC more accessible for students with additional mobility needs. The previous chairs were larger and often cluttered the aisles between the tables, making it very difficult to navigate.

“What I want to do is make sure we continue to keep this as a collaborative space that allows for it to be a gathering space, but also a workspace. This isn’t just a space to hang out, but also a space for people to get work done and you need to offer diverse options for that to happen,” Mirandola said.

The KLC will also be hosting “Cocoa, Canines and Cram” on Dec. 15, the Monday of finals week, to give students a chance to study and visit with peer tutors before their finals. There will be a hot cocoa truck and therapy dogs there to help relieve stress before finals.

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