Despite the fantastic school building with its contemporary elements and necessities provided for students, GZAAT lacked a significant building for the campus – An Auditorium.
Since 2017, the school has not had an auditorium gym has been used to gather all students and staff. Lucky for us, earlier this year, it was finally revealed that a new auditorium would be built! The news spread, and the students (even teachers) were more excited than ever! Many students were left unsatisfied and found it a necessary place that a campus MUST have.
Before the Junior High grade addition to The American Academy, their part of the building was the Auditorium, which was used for assemblies, events, and other large gatherings the students had. It wasn't perfect, since there was not much space, but it sufficed. Since the addition of a new grade, the number of overall students has drastically increased – which of course, made the need for a larger gathering space necessary. So the idea to renew the Auditorium came to Mr. Cruz right after the addition of Junior High. The board did not approve of this plan, which caused the school to function without the Auditorium way longer than expected! By the time this project was approved, the pandemic had started, which made it impossible to set the building into motion. However, at the end of the last school year, all the plans started coming to life!
Enjoyable events like Christmas parties and movie nights will be hosted in the Auditorium, but the primary function of the new building will be assemblies. Friday's classes end an hour earlier than the rest of the week. During this time, we will have assemblies - gatherings of the whole school, including the teachers, where we will communicate, present projects and announcements, or even have debates! Everyone probably prefers to spend this free hour away from school, but these assemblies are crucial to the school's culture.
The core idea of this new building is to fit everything necessary and still be comfortable. Nevertheless, a huge aspect of why it is so open is that it has to be very flexible. For instance, "if there is a typical theatrical stage with fixed chairs, you are stuck with that, and doing some other kind of event won't be easy." So, there will be chairs and a structure, but everything will be able to move around. This building plan will come in handy for fun events - like parties or dances. Mr. Cruz also mentions that one of the priorities for the Auditorium is sound. The school is investing a lot in sound systems like microphones and speakers.
Now to answer the question the whole school has been asking - "when will the Auditorium be finished?" Thankfully, everything will be done before the second semester. Mr. Cruz thinks it might be just in time to host the Christmas party and the ceremony before the winter break!
Edited by: Zura Gigineishvili
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