DENTON HIGH SCHOOL: THE NEXT 125 YEARS Sloan Harris, VLK Partner In 1884, a three-story 12-classroom building opened as the first “free” public school in Denton County, known as the Central School on South Locust Street next to what is now the First United Methodist Church. The school would evolve into several different buildings and locations over its life. Fast-forward to the fall of 2022, when students will leave their familiar campus and enter a new state-ofthe-art, 21st Century learning environment that is the new Denton High School. The vision for this campus started years ago. The Board of Trustees and Superintendent, Dr. Jamie Wilson, have been responding to their district’s fast growth for quite some time, opening new elementary schools almost every year, new middle schools, a professional development center, a career and technology center, and in 2016 they opened their fourth high school, with Braswell High School designed by VLK. But, despite the continued need for the district to build new campuses to accommodate
their population growth, they knew they needed to attend to their aging facilities as well. In 2017, they began discussions to create a vision to do just that, with their most storied legacy, Denton High School, as the flagship of the plan. The new Denton High School (DHS) will serve 2,400 students, grades 9-12, and has extensive specialized spaces for the arts and sciences, as the school is part of the International Baccalaureate Programme. The strength of this campus is how it was conceptualized and brought to reality. After the bond passed in May 2018, Denton ISD and VLK Architects began with VLK | LAUNCH®, following a comprehensive curation process of the school’s teaching and learning styles so that the design solution was responsive to the specific needs and goals of DHS. The VLK | LAUNCH® participants consisted of students, teachers, parents, community leaders, and administrators. Something significant happened during this process that Continued on next page >>
2019 | EXPERIENCE | Vol. 6
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