It’s no secret that construction is happening at Box Elder High School. Driving by, it looks like a bomb went off! The old auditorium is getting updated, the drama room is off limits, and the choir room has giant holes where the walls used to be. Where can the Performing Arts be practiced? They’ve been relocated to the north end of school, along with the school’s offices.

The Bee asked Mrs. Bigler what she thinks about construction. “Well my biggest issue is getting booted out of my old room and then going back to it when they‘re done.  Except for music and drama, everyone else who got booted is getting a new room.”  

Her current classroom is made by two rooms with the wall missing between them. Since the move, she’s brought in risers to help the sound quality. Often times, she’ll have the kids get in a big circle so they can hear each other better. “The room isn’t too awful, except the acoustics are like singing into a black hole.” she said earlier.

A choir room is more than a large room that holds lots of people; it’s built with special care to make sure sound is heard by all people in the room. Outside the temporary choir room window, construction vehicles backing up make different pitches that sometimes mess up the higher vocal range. This means that construction may actually be de-constructing talent.

Often times throughout the week, certain aromas can be smelled in the classroom. Sometimes its natural gas; sometimes diesel fumes, but the most disruptive was the day that a truck came to pump out the porta-potties under the window, and the fumes were so bad that the room had to be evacuated.  

“If we can learn to sing well in an acoustically dead room, we should sound GREAT when we get into a good performing space.  Without an auditorium, we may not find that out this year.  It’s sad for this year’s senior class.” says Mrs. Bigler. “Everyone says it will be worth it when you get to go back to that new room.  They are usually surprised to find that we don’t get a new room.  We are getting a refurbished old room back, but are not getting much-needed additional space.”