Letting it all hang out Letting it all hang out (January 21, 2004)

New student lounge lets high school students relax

by Rachel Metz

The furniture is rather ratty and the building still looks like its previous tenant (a library), but to Gunn High School students the new student lounge is a great place to chill out.

It's a place where old La-Z-Boy recliners come to retire, and kids sink into old, overstuffed couches playing cards and chatting with friends. A toy parrot, toucan and monkey perch on the fronds of a fake potted palm tree. In early January, old library shelves still claimed a portion of the main room, waiting to be replaced by a pool table donated by the class of 2003. There's a bank of computers in the room right now, but soon those will be removed.

The first of its kind student lounge gives kids respite from their hectic school schedules.

Nik Kaestner, Gunn student activities director, likens the lounge to a collegiate student union. Located in the middle of campus, it's close the school's quad, which is where most student activities occur. The lounge has snacks for sale, like chips, candy and juice. Officials are trying to get the school's snack bar to sell food in the lounge as well, Kaestner said.

"I'm so excited about this room," junior Julian Habdank-kolaczkowski gushed on an early January afternoon, a few days after the lounge's opening.

All students approached about the new lounge seemed content that it finally came to fruition.

"It's so cool," junior class president Ashwin Agarwal said.

Part of the room houses a lounge area filled with chairs and couches, while the other part has tables and chairs meant for studying and the school's student government meetings. Studying hasn't been that popular, Kaestner said, so the student government might take over the back portion of the room.

The lone studier spotted in the room, junior Lashley Simmons, said she thinks the chairs are comfy.

"It's nice," she said, sitting in an old, plush swivel chair.

True to its appearance, the lounge was put together on less than a shoestring -- furniture was donated by parents and an outgoing branch of Bayview Bank. The big library circulation desk was moved across the room. The only thing paid for was moving the student activities office's safe from its old digs, Kaestner said.

The orange carpeting remains, as do the wood panels on the walls and tinted windows that give the room a perpetually cloudy appearance.

Still, kids are claiming their new space -- evident in the legs hanging over old recliners and continued flow of kids into and out of the lounge.

According to Agarwal, they're planning on having pillow fights and poker games in the lounge, and during the annual March Madness basketball tournament they want to bring TV sets into the building so kids can catch the games.

"This used to be a place where you couldn't eat or anything and now you can do anything you want, and I mean that in a good way," Agarwal said.

The lounge will eventually include a game area and a Zen area, Kaetner said. He'd like to plant something in the small attached courtyard.

"I'd like to make it look a little, you know, kempt," he said.

Besides having designated spaces for kids to be kids, the lounge gives Kaestner a sizeable attached office and easily-accessible storage space for student council props like a burgundy-swathed wood throne used during homecoming. There's also a room that can be used to store Gunn clothing and snacks sold through the student activities office.

"Basically, it's super convenient for us," Kaestner said.

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