Summer Campus Updates

It takes a lot to maintain Overlake’s campus. With 75 acres, 13 buildings, fields, and parking lots, the daily operations alone keep our maintenance team on their toes. 

But during the summer is a great time to make some improvements and refresh the campus so it’s ready for our faculty and students to return this fall.  

For our youngest and newest owls, the 5th and 6th grade building is getting a new look. Classrooms are being rearranged, reconfigured, and repainted. Cubbies are being added to the first floor halls, and whiteboards are being added to the classrooms to aid in class time creativity.

In fact, new whiteboards are going in all over campus including Whitten, the TLC, and the Humanities buildings. The Humanities building is also getting a technology AV refresh with new and improved capabilities. Across those buildings you might also notice new or rearranged public spaces furniture and updated desks in some of the classrooms. 

When they come to the campus center for breakfast in the fall, students will notice sleek new counters to help organize dishes, condiments, and the myriad of things our amazing kitchen crew provides during the year. 

Our Director of Health and Wellness, Dr. Samantha Hillyer (’01) has also spearheaded an initiative to improve the offerings and organization around menstrual products on campus. Several years ago, students advocated for a change in the menstrual product offerings on campus. And while the products have changed, the storage and delivery method has been pieced together and needed some improvement. Starting this year, new acrylic holders have been installed in all bathrooms across campus with August brand organic, non toxic, menstrual products. The dispensers are better organized, installed at an accessible height for all students, and easy to refill. 

“We made it a priority. We wanted to make it more accessible for students so they can access the products easily and know that ‘the school has me taken care of so I can focus on my school day’,” Hillyer says. As a part of Overlake’s well being pillar, this is just one of the ways Overlake cares for the whole student. 

But of course, that’s not all happening on campus this summer. There’s work being done on the paths around campus, the new Dean’s offices, parking lot striping, building exterior paint on Fulton, new water bottle filler stations, LED Gym lighting, new flooring in the art studios, improvements to the Art Barn backpack storage, new electric vehicles, acoustic felt, Field 1 bench shelters, HVAC controls, and a new scorer’s table in the gym, just to name a few. In fact, our maintenance team has a list of more than 70 projects to improve, repair, and maintain our beautiful 75 acre campus. And when our students return to campus, it will be ready for our students to learn and be curious. Maintaining our beautiful spaces and structures allows our students and faculty to thrive and let their creativity fly.