A new look for Niwot High

It's not an "extreme" makeover, but Niwot High is having a little work done before the 2021-22 school year begins. Last month, construction began on the final phase of the school's 2016 bond construction project, which will bring an updated look to the exterior and help newcomers find their way around.

"People that come here that aren't familiar with our setup, a lot of times they'll ring the doorbell at the front and ask, 'Is this the gymnasium or where's the baseball field?', or there are grandparents for a play performance who don't know where the auditorium doors are," Niwot High principal Eric Rauschkolb said. "So we wanted to put something out there big that really described where people should go when they arrive at the building."

Chief among the coming updates are a new covered entryway at the school's main doors, which has been another source of confusion for visitors, according to Rauschkolb.

"We have a new entryway that will provide some covering from rain and snow for kids as they come into the building, and also provide some signage right at our front. Because before we felt like people didn't really know where the front of our building was. It was kind of nondescript."

The project also includes two new monument signs: one directing visitors to the main entrance and one at the southeast corner of the building, pointing people towards activity venues.

"We're erecting two monument signs that really give visitors a good picture of what our campus looks like and where they should go for their particular event," the principal said. "They really illustrate where the fields are."

Tying it all together will be new signs on the building's facade, replacing the two mismatched signs from different eras of the building.

"As you look at the building, there's Niwot High School in big letters on the main gym, and there's also a Niwot High School sign on the small gym," Rauschkolb said. "And they're different fonts, they're different sizes, they're using different colors. So it just didn't look very unified, and just looks kind of haphazard. So it will be nice to have one big giant sign that illustrates the pride that we have in our building."

Construction is scheduled to wrap up at the end of July, bringing the long-term project to a close. During earlier phases of bond construction, the school's learning commons and library media center were renovated.