2015 Year in Preview: Briarwood Christian breaks ground

After commemorating 50 years of education, Briarwood Christian School has another reason to celebrate in 2015. 

In early February, Brairwood’s campus off Cahaba Valley Road will break ground on a new three-story building and two new tennis courts. This 24,000-square-foot space will be located behind the current high school building. 

In it, Briarwood will gain about 10 educational spaces including six modern science labs, two collaborative classrooms and a larger and more modern library-media center. Dr. Barrett Mosbacker, the school’s superintendent, said the entire building will  facilitate advanced science work at the high school level and emphasis digital technologies. 

“Our primary focus is what’s beneficial to our students,” Mosbacker said, “So one of the things is, we are also in the process of laying a foundation for a comprehensive STEM [science, technology, engineering and mathematics] project for K-12.”

The need for the additional space became clear through an analysis of Brairwood’s growth in enrollment from 2004 to 2014. Overall, the school has seen an 11 percent increase in enrollment, and the South Campus, for seventh through 12th-graders, has seen enrollment grow by 17 percent. The building will allow for about a 10 percent increased enrollment.

Just as Briarwood’s One-to-One iPad program, which gave an iPad to every seventh to 12th-grader, the new space will put more emphasis on modern technology in its two collaborative classrooms. The furnishings in those rooms will feature flexible so that those classrooms can turn into almost anything for any purpose. 

 “When we implement the STEM, we have the necessary facilities to accommodate and facilitate the implementation of STEM instruction in the classroom,” Mosbacker said. “[This building] allows us to expand our science programs. It allows us to integrate the technology with the mathematics and the science instruction that goes on.”

Construction on the new building will happen simultaneously with renovations to the tennis courts. The new building will displace the existing tennis courts, and Mosbacker said the tennis courts were in need of refreshing and remodeling already. Briarwood has already started preliminary work on the tennis courts. 

The school’s master plan, not part of the plan that breaks ground in February, calls for updating current fields and adding additional fields, but it is a long-range plan. Depending on how fundraising goes, Mosbacker said Briarwood might be able to begin upgrading the football stadium and the track area come spring. 

The entire project should be completed by Christmas 2015, and once Brairwood’s students have moved into the new space, the school plans to start renovations to expand and modernize its existing spaces.

“That’s going to be a great blessing,” Mosbacker said. “It allows us to reduce some class sizes, and it allows us to add courses. There is a lot of benefit to what this building does.”