This September, the Liberty 6000 wing opened its doors to a brand new set of facilities, including an all new Wood Shop, Metal Fabrication room and Ceramics classroom.

The rooms have been made much safer with overhead outlets to eliminate tripping hazards and tables made with new burn resistant materials. In the Metal Fabrication room the decibel level was lowered from 87dB to a healthier and more bearable 60dB. But while the new classrooms now have windows, brighter lights, new projectors, and new ceramics throwing wheels, they still aren’t quite finished.

Teachers housed in the 6000 wing anticipated delays but certainly not to the extent that they occurred. Teachers were relegated to either computer labs or auxiliary gyms while the finishing touches were put on the classrooms.

The Ceramics class adapted to its new setting by changing its curriculum from five to six projects working with ceramics to working with metal wire instead. The Metal Fabrication class dealt with this delay differently.

“The situation made us more creative,” metal fabrication teacher Tod Oney said. “We changed the way our class works. We went from 65 percent hands on and 35 percent lecturing to 80 percent lecture and only 20 percent hands on.”

Even though students are now in a new building; the classrooms are still barely functional. In Ceramics the kiln is leaking which destroyed some projects. In the Wood Shop room, dust removal chutes became clogged in the first week of class and the wiring needed to be redone.

“It seems strange that our school has been declared ‘done’ when there are still these problems with the 6000 building,” junior and metal fabrication student Fred Hillestad said. “To me it doesn’t feel right that the red tape has been cut but students still can’t do their regular classwork.”

Despite the delays, the classrooms are nearly finished and Liberty students can expect to be back to the normal shop curriculums in the coming months.