Park is undergoing construction and renovations on the building this year, and there are a variety of changes that are being made to adjust to this construction. One of these changes is due to the music classrooms being renovated, forcing music students to move to different classrooms. Band, orchestra and choir all had to move to different spaces, and it has had an effect on these students along with their teachers.
Park’s orchestra teacher Kou Lee had an optimistic view on the temporary move to a classroom. Lee said the performance of the orchestra will not differ as a result of the obstacle of practicing in a classroom.
“They’ve been together for a lot of years, you know, so they’re together, all throughout high school,” Lee said. “A lot of them are really close, and through that relationship it helps them in the class and affects how they play.”
According to junior Arun Ferran-Sapatnekar, an orchestra student at Park, the classroom has some inconveniences. One of which is how long it takes for things to be set up.
“One disadvantage is that it takes more time to get ready for class at the start of class, because it’s just not as intuitive as the old classroom,” Ferran-Sapatnekar said.
Junior Lucas Tangleson, a band student at Park, also said he sees disadvantages to using a classroom. He said the sound is worse in the current classrooms and there is not enough space.
“It’s been tough. There’s not very much space. We don’t have any sound panels so the sound bounces off the walls and it’s super loud,” Tangleson said. “The only way to deal with the noise is either hurting your ears or wearing earplugs and I just haven’t been able to adjust, so I just play without earplugs.”
Lee said even though there may be some disadvantages to these new spaces, the students work just as hard and their success should remain the same.
“A space is a space so it doesn’t affect how I teach and doesn’t affect how the students work. I do think the setup and stuff is important, but we barely have enough room for that. But a space is a space,” Lee said.
