LaSalle Springs Middle Students Design, Build Lecterns for Rockwood Graduation Ceremonies

When Dominic Bommarito, Evon Cotter and Lucas Hiebsch cross the stage at the Eureka High Class of 2029 graduation ceremony, the lecterns they pass on their way to receiving their diplomas will look very familiar.

That's because, this past school year, they all played key roles in designing and building two new lecterns for use at Rockwood School District graduation ceremonies as part of the Need Squad wood shop AcLab group at LaSalle Springs Middle.

The three students completely designed and built one lectern, and teacher Bryan Tenny helped finish the second in time for this year’s graduation ceremonies at the Family Arena in St. Charles.

The bottom of the first lectern bears the names of all three students.

“In class when we were working on it, everyone would ask about it because ours was the biggest project in the room,” Bommarito said. “Everyone thought it was cool we were making something for high school, that eventually we’ll be able to use.”

The LaSalle Springs Need Squad is a group of eighth-graders who take on carpentry projects from around the school – and district – to fulfill the motto posted in Tenny’s room: “If you see a need, do something about it.”

“My ultimate message is we should be looking for needs,” said Tenny, Rockwood’s 2025-2026 Middle School Teacher of the Year. “Whether that’s something we can fill as a carpenter or if it has nothing to do with carpentry, like sitting next to someone at lunch who seems sad and ask how they’re doing. The fact that these students were trusted with such a project that would impact Rockwood as a district really solidifies what we’re trying to do: seeing needs and meeting them.”

Representatives from the Rockwood Communications and Curriculum departments approached the students with the need – new graduation lecterns – this past fall.

Bommarito and Hiebsch were the first to volunteer. They worked on research, design and building a prototype throughout the fall semester. Once Hiebsch moved on to a new AcLab in the spring, Cotter came on board to help Bommarito build the final product.

This was, of course, in addition to helping out with other needs along the way.

“It was my very first year doing wood shop and Mr. Tenny is a really good teacher, so I thought doing Need Squad would be a fun experience,” Hiebsch said. "It was cool being able to help people in LaSalle. Teachers would bring down broken chairs, broken desks, being able to help them fix everything. Then you’d see it in classrooms and be like, ‘Oh, I fixed that a couple weeks ago.’ That was really cool.”

Tenny said one of the most instructive aspects about the project for him was watching the students learn through problem-solving. Bommarito, especially, stood out in his ability to bring a question to Tenny, weigh what the teacher had to say and make his own decisions about the best course forward.

Because Tenny certainly wasn’t going to spoon-feed him anything.

“I love seeing all the mistakes. I love seeing them be hungry and ask questions,” Tenny said. “There were times when Dom would look at me and say, ‘I appreciate what you’re thinking, but we’re going to go this way.’ Building confidence in him, looking at an adult for input, considering that and making a decision, that’s the independence we want. That’s a leader who is going to take risks and learn. To me, that was priceless.”

There were times the students set the controls wrong on the Shaper Origin handheld router. There was the time they built on a table they thought was flat only to find it was slightly slanted, throwing off the design. There was the time, once the prototype was all but finished, that a student accidentally snapped one of the walls, and it had to be rebuilt.

The students treated all of them as teachable moments rather than excuses to give up.

“There was a lot of trial and error,” Bommarito said. “Mr. Tenny let some of our ideas go that he probably knew wouldn’t work. Some of them did, some of them didn’t, and I think that was a really good learning experience. You can find different ways of solving problems, but sometimes you might need to just go another way.”

Once the graduation ceremonies started May 10, Tenny began to receive messages from friends in attendance complimenting the quality of the lecterns.

He made sure to share with his students.

“I was like a proud dad,” Tenny said. “We had these kids get the project and run it all the way through. They, solely, were the champions of this project.”

“We get to carry on our legacy through it,” Cotter added.