Evanston Township High School is in the early stages of a several hundred thousand dollar project to revamp the school’s signage with the goal of making it easier for new students, parents and visitors to navigate the building.
The high school district’s Board of Education received an update on the status of the signage project at a meeting earlier this month. ETHS Director of Communications and Engagement Evangeline Semark outlined a slew of reasons why the project was an important one for the high school district, including that much of the current signage is outdated, directories include information pertaining to rooms and functions that no longer exist, overhead signs lack directional arrows, signs carry inconsistent fonts and terminology, and there’s no overt indication to inform visitors and students which wing of the school they’re walking through. Additionally, she said, room identification numbers are permanent and cannot be changed if the room or faculty changes, and are not compliant with the American Disabilities Act.
“Our school building is immensely large and difficult to navigate, and we know the environment can feel intimidating and overwhelming for first-time visitors,” Semark said. She added that the improvements included in the project are targeted to first time visitors, students and parents.
Evanston Township High School District 202 board member, Gretchen Livingston, called the project “really long overdue” and said she “would have loved it when I first arrived as a parent at this high school.”
Chief financial officer for District 202, William Stafford, said the project will likely cost upward of $300,000.
After surveying students, staff and teachers in the building, the design firm the district hired for the project, Chicago-based Cardosi Kiper Design Group, presented several recommendations which have already been approved by the administration, Semark said.
She said the school will ditch the historical names used to designate the separate wings of the facility in favor of north, west, east and south to demarcate the four central wings and cafeterias. The first floor of the building dubbed the H Corridor will be renamed Heritage Hall and will serve as a space “to tell our story, many stories, for visitors entering our building,” Semark said.
The number of colors currently used to denote separate areas of the school will be pared down, she said, and the facility’s three main entrances will be renumbered from Door 1, Door 31 and Door 50 to Door 1, Door 2 and Door 3. Semark added that room numbers in the building will also be changed to make the system less “illogical and confusing.” Additionally, she said, the road often referred to as the school’s “back drive” will be renamed “Wildkit Drive” to both foster school spirit and help visitors, especially those coming for sporting events, find their way back to the right parking lot.
Kim Cardosi, president of Cardosi Kiper Design Group, said new interior signs above each wing of the school will include symbols to identify services, like restrooms, in effort to help alleviate any difficulties for non-English speaking visitors to the building. She said room ID signs will be changeable and carry the room number at the proper ADA elevation and include Braille. The design concepts for this phase of the project are still under review, Semark said.
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New maps “in many locations” of the high school will likely be one of “the most noticeable changes because we have nothing like this in the building (currently),” Semark said.
She said the next steps in the process will be to finalize all design concepts and terminology and develop a management and maintenance plan.
“This is such a massive project we have to do this by floor,” Semark said. She said the signage installation will be done by the Evanston-based company, Allegra, and the first floor will be completed by the time the next school year begins. A timeline for the remainder of the project, including floors two through four and the exterior of the building is yet to be determined, she said.
District 202 board president Pat Savage-Williams expressed some concern about “Spanish speaking families coming to the school and not seeing any of their language” on the signage.
Cardosi said the new system will be based more upon symbols and room numbers than upon language, and that “language is not as critical when searching for a room number.”
Semark added that the school currently provides maps to visitors in both English and Spanish and would continue to do so in the future.
As the project begins to take shape this year, ETHS Superintendent Eric Witherspoon said the progress “will propel us to figure out how to see this moving along.”
Lee V. Gaines is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.