The campus’ third campus beautification day took place on Earth Day, April 22. A record number of students — about 60 — showed up to lay down fresh mulch in the OLE Area and front parking lots, lay down a gravel path in the OLE Area, plant olive trees, and weed the campus. Vice Principal Dan Ostermann explains the previous success of other campus beautification days, and his ultimate goal in improving the school’s appearance.

“We weeded the entire OLE area, and we finished installing the mulch throughout the center part of the garden there. We did a lot of pruning on the backside of R-wing; we also did some weeding and planting at the outdoor classroom space in between the G-wing and the I-wing,” said Ostermann.

With the ultimate goal of refreshing the entirety of the school’s landscape, Ostermann has put together some specific ideas of what he would like to see accomplished during the campus beautification days, with the help of a few students.

“At eight a.m. they will arrive, and we will refresh all the gravel pathways in the OLE. So we hope to have enough gravel for all of that, and in addition to that, we’re going to be planting a couple of senior projects. Noble Schleuter is fixing up the planter beds in the center of the campus in front of the library. A student named Tiana will also be planting a tree. We’re going to be doing a tremendous amount of weeding and mulching. [On] a campus this size, it’s never ending,” said Ostermann.

Senior Noble Schlueter, who has an interest in landscaping and is planning on majoring in civil engineering next year, describes how he is taking part in beautifying the campus, and what impact he hopes to have on the student’s everyday experience.

“I’m helping to beautify the campus by weeding and replanting one of the planters in front of the library. Originally I had planned to do something much bigger, involving landscape planning, but work backed up and I ran out of time to attempt something that large-scale. I wanted to develop the area outside of H5, but I had to settle for something smaller. I just hope people walking out of the library and Simon’s room have something nicer to look at than a dead bush and foot-tall weeds,” said Schlueter.

While the days are filled with hard work and manual labor, the students and teachers had fun using the pizza oven, barbequing, and listening to music. Overall, the campus beautification days have been a success in visually enhancing the campus. Ostermann is planning on having one more beautification day this year in order to further improve the campus this May.