Hinsdale Central underwent a massive ten-week construction project over the summer. However, two weeks before school started, renovations were still going on. The front entrance was blocked, hallways were cluttered and students could not access lockers.

“It was a bother because when we were getting our schedules and starting to receive our text books, we weren’t able to go run our schedules or even find our locker,” said Veronica Cothard, sophomore.

Additionally, students were confused as to the state of the construction.

“I was wondering if they were going to get it all done by the first day of school,” said Kivi Davidson, junior.

“I felt that as a student, we weren’t very well informed as to what was actually happening in the school. I think parents were emailed, but I never heard anything,” Cothard said.

Currently, all the renovations have been put in place, but some final items, such as tweaking the air conditioning, putting in bio swales and putting in the landscaping still need to be completed. All the final adjustments are expected to be finished by the middle of October, according to Michael McGrory, principal.

“Going into this, we knew that we wouldn’t finish everything; however, we got everything we hoped to get done. We had everything to start the school year. What is left now is just checklist stuff,” McGrory said.

“Our number one goal was to get the air conditioning on, which we did,” said William Walsh, assistant principal of operations.

However, some of the kinks with the air conditioning are still being worked out. Many of the rooms have been too cold, and the science hallway had some condensation.

“Every day we are picking up more and more rooms and tweaking them to get them at the right temperature,” McGrory said, “When everything is finished, we will be able go in and just pull up the temperature of each classroom on a screen. Then you can go and adjust classrooms that are too hot or too cold.”

Renovations included the air conditioning, new bus lanes out back, the front entrance, science classrooms, the Yearbook and Advocate production room, the gymnasium and the auditorium.