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Customer Story • Furniture & Space Design
Cedar Creek Middle School • Youngsville, NC • public middle school
Spaces where kids want to be
Cedar Creek Middle School keeps finding new ways to make its building better for students, and Kennedy has made each upgrade, from math classrooms to a Student Success Lab to a brighter art room, simple from the first sketch to the final install.
The Student Success Lab at Cedar Creek Middle School
Customer
Cedar Creek Middle School
Sector
Education • Public middle school
Location
Youngsville, NC
Interviewee
Dail Bunting, Principal
Project
Math classrooms, then a Student Success Lab (installed Oct 2025) and an art room refresh (installed Mar 2026)
Furniture
MooreCo MediaSpace tables, Short Privacy Pod, Orbit Loveseat, Beanies; art room: HON MakerSpace tables, SmartLink seating
Finishes
Limoncello, Ping Pong Mai Tai, Tuscan, Grey Elm laminate
Account team
Sarah Clayton (rep), Alexa Huntley (design)
The Challenge
A principal with a vision, and a partner already in place.
Cedar Creek Middle School is a growing public school in Youngsville, North Carolina, serving grades six through eight. Its team is always looking for ways to make the building a better place for students, and when Dail Bunting became principal in early 2025, she arrived with a clear vision for the spaces she wanted to create.
To bring those ideas to life, she worked with Sarah Clayton and the team at Kennedy. Kennedy had already outfitted two of the school's math classrooms with collaborative furniture, so the relationship was in place when Bunting was ready to take on something bigger.
The Solution
A space built around how students grow.
Bunting's biggest idea was a Student Success Lab. She pictured a welcoming room where staff could check in with students, where clubs and student government could meet, and where any student who needed a quiet place to focus, a little encouragement, or even a spare notebook could find it. It was a space designed around how students grow, and an opportunity to give them something the school did not have before.
"We talked to her about our dream and our vision, and she and the design team more than made it come to life."
Sarah and Kennedy designer Alexa Huntley worked within the budget and brought back options to choose from, version A, version B, version C, until the plan was right. Together they turned one room into a flexible space: collaboration tables with a markerboard top, a quiet privacy pod for focused work, a soft loveseat and beanbags, and room for a club meeting or a service project. Kennedy specified every piece and handled the install, and the room was ready on schedule.
Education meets office design
Guidance from someone who has been in the classroom.
Sarah Clayton spent fifteen years teaching before she moved into office furniture, which gives her a rare double perspective. She knows how students actually use a room, how they sit, and what holds up to daily wear, and she knows how to turn that into the right products and a plan that fits the budget. For an administrator making furniture decisions for the first time, that guidance is what makes the whole thing easy.
"She knows how kids lean in the chairs. Some are really cute, but if they lean the way kids lean, you will not get the lifespan out of them. That perspective is so helpful when you have never done furniture purchasing before."
"The product selection is really good, and in every case they gave us options to fit what our team needed."
Dail BuntingPrincipal • Cedar Creek Middle SchoolThe Results
Spaces students use and families notice.
The Student Success Lab is now in constant use, from morning check-ins to club meetings to service projects. The art room refresh that followed gave a class with a waitlist the capacity to welcome more students, and Cedar Creek now features both rooms on its campus tours, where families look for spaces their kids will want to spend time in. With two projects behind them and the same easy process every time, Bunting and Sarah are already planning what to take on next.
"They are always here when they say they will be. They are pros from beginning to end, and it is everything as advertised."
"Once we land on a design, the finance teams handle the paperwork, and a few weeks later Sarah sends delivery and install dates. I have never had anything but a positive experience."
The Space
See it for yourself.
Cedar Creek Middle School, Youngsville. Furnished and installed by Kennedy. Photos provided by the school.
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