Winter Park High School enjoys upgrades

It’s no secret that public schools often grapple with funding for new programs and features. However, Winter Park High School has had some help from the Winter Park High School Foundation.

The school has seen a series of additions and structural developments as of late, thanks to the Winter Park nonprofit. The school’s tennis courts recently 

had an upgrade, an initiative to provide sun shading over parts of the school is halfway to completion, the baseball fields have been reworked, and the auditorium is receiving a new sound system. 

It’s a sizable number of projects, but the foundation has the budget to match.

“We typically run about a $450,000-a-year budget,” said Vince Furey, director of charitable giving and the past president of the Winter Park High School Foundation. “We’ve raised about $1.3 million in the last three-and-a-half or four years. With that type of fundraising, there’s a lot of things we can affect at the school.”

Although Furey has spent time as head of the nonprofit, he now deals with the foundation’s large donors, fellow nonprofit organizations and donor families. He also oversees the various projects put into place to improve the high school each year. 

“Over the last five years, the foundation has gotten real momentum and a solid structure,” he said. “Winter Park High School has an incredible legacy, and people have very close ties to the high school and want to see it continue to improve.”

Made In The Shade

After a full year of fundraising, the foundation is finally spending about $130,000 to install sun shading over the school’s pool area and outdoor cafeteria space. 

“Between the aquatics program, the high-school swimming and water polo team, the Blue Dolphin club team and the Central Florida Sun water polo team, the Stone Crab club — they all train out of Winter Park High School,” Furey said. “That pool deck was getting a lot of use year-round, and there was no shade at all.”

Sixty feet of sun-shade screen now covers both sides of the pool, leaving only the outdoor cafeteria needing work. 

Furey said the school’s older campus simply can’t hold all the students in the cafeteria, leading around 100 to 200 students eating outdoors each lunch period. Although there are tables with umbrellas to keep students cool, there soon will be 80 feet by 80 feet of shade covering two-thirds of the outdoor cafeteria. 

Tennis Courts

The foundation stays in close contact with Principal Matthew Arnold to find parts of the school most in need of improvement. 

Furey and Arnold didn’t need to look hard to find a part of the school that needed work. The school’s tennis court complex has been in a state of significant disrepair, with two of the courts deemed unplayable.

The courts now have a new surface, replaced nets, dust screens and more. Furey said it’s one of the quicker projects the foundation has tackled, with work starting in October 2017 and completed in January 2018. A donor almost funded the initiative completely. 

Others Developments

The foundation also completed a $55,000 project to replace the performing-arts auditorium’s performance lighting from canned lighting to modern LED lighting in October. About $140,000 was spent to update the school’s weight room, and $70,000 was put toward redesigning the athletic center’s locker rooms. 

Furey said the pool area also is receiving a new sound system.

The foundation’s major 2019 project will be to update the school’s media center. The center, which serves as a meeting space for several groups and clubs, has 1970s and 1980s furniture that isn’t compatible with the school’s more modern, technology-focused aesthetic, according to Furey.