The new courtyard, which will be a place for students and teachers to congregate in the spring, has also sparked a fundraising idea for Renaissance.

“When we started construction the plan included a courtyard in the middle of Lafayette. We decided it was a great place to leave your legacy,” Language Arts teacher Melinda Bond said.

The fundraiser Leave Your Legacy at Lafayette will sell bricks engraved with names of student, staff and alumni. The bricks will be permanently laid in the courtyard.

“It’s a legacy thing. You get to leave your name and your mark on this school,” Principal John Shaughnessy said.

The bricks are $100 each. The money raised will go towards t-shirt and water bottle giveaways, sending kids to conferences and programs, funding the academic pep assembly and supporting projects such as Scholar Artist and Scholar Athlete.

The idea to sell the bricks was inspired by other colleges and sporting arenas doing their own fundraisers.

Brick news will be spread by Facebook and email, advertising geared towards incoming freshmen and large postcards mailed to alumni.    

The bricks will be sold 15, 20 or 30 at a time. “Then we’ll ship them out. It will take several weeks for them to be engraved,” Shaughnessy said.

Once the bricks are returned, the current bricks in the courtyard will be torn up and returned to the construction company.

In the past, more corporate donations have been sought than fundraisers. This is because students often end up fundraising. “We don’t want them to have to work for their gifts,” Bond said.

“Lafayette’s Renaissance program is one of the best. We support the community and they support us,” Bond said.