The strength and conditioning room is currently undergoing construction. Freshman Owen Filing has been lifting in the weights room since winter of 2023.
“I think it’s small, but it’s fun to be in the room with all your friends and play music,” Filing said.
Though there are positive things to say about the weight room, Executive Director of Operations for the Blue Valley school district Jake Siobodik said that there are some issues with the current room.
“The class is adjacent to a learning classroom. I think it’s a science classroom, and those two in adjacency really don’t mesh,” Siobodik said. “If you’re in that science room, you hear everything happening [in the weights room]. So it’s really hard to focus.”
Science teacher Taylor Heiman agrees as she said the weights room is quite loud for being so close to the classrooms.
“You can hear the music blaring, you can hear the screaming, you can hear the weights and everything,” Heiman said.
The comfort, safety and education of the students in the weights room is a priority for the district, so the construction will move the weights room away from other classes and make it larger to accommodate more students.
“The size of the weight room right now just doesn’t accommodate all students safely,” Siobodik said.
He said not only the space but also the location are changing. With size being an issue, the new room is going to be 6,100 square feet, almost double the size of the current one. According to Siobodik, the construction is scheduled to take about ten months, starting Oct. 2024 and ending Aug. 2025.
The funding for the space is coming from a bond the community supported in Jan. 2023. As far as equipment for the new building, the weights program will use the current weights as well as provide some new equipment. Across the district, many schools are renovating weight rooms depending on how old the school is. Strength and conditioning coach John Reichart said that it’s been roughly 18 years since the room has changed. According to Reichart, in recent years the program has grown significantly.
“We maxed out at 84 [students per class],” Reichart said. “We were reaching that number in the last three to four years.”
Reichart said the larger space won’t be the only benefit, it will also aid the functionality of the class.
“How we set up our workouts, will be able to run much smoother in the new facility,” Reichart said.
According to Reichart, the layout will include the original 14 racks along with 14 more in the center of the room with more space for equipment and other activities.
Sophomore Sam Beznovsky said he has been lifting in the BVNW weights room since seventh grade for a strength and conditioning camp. While the larger weights room will benefit the other classrooms and the workouts themselves, Beznovsky said that the larger room will cause an adjusting period for the culture of the class.
“We’re going to have to redo the culture of the room since we’re so used to being in the old one, [it will take] a little bit of adjusting to get used to how things work in the new one,” Beznovsky said.
