Close your eyes and visualize a middle school anywhere in Mississippi.
Chances are, you are not imagining dance, art and broadcast studios, a food court that looks like it should be in an airport or mall rather than a school, and a library with an atmosphere rivaling Barnes and Noble.
Del Phillips did.
Standing in the rotunda Tuesday afternoon, illuminated by a latern-like element in the ceiling, Phillips, superintendent of Columbus schools, greeted teachers getting their first glimpse at the new Columbus Middle School.
“I was excited this afternoon to see the teachers excited about their new workplace,” Phillips said. “I believe this is one way to display our level of expectation for not only teachers, but students, parents, myself and the community. It raises the bar of expectation for education in Columbus and the Golden Triangle.”
Katina Brooks walked the halls, snapping pictures with her cell phone, posting them to Facebook.
“It’s awesome,” she said of the new building, admiring the gray and purple motif. “We’re excited.”
Brooks teaches sixth-grade reading and language arts. Noting the beauty of the modern building, she also was grateful for the smaller elements — desks she can manipulate without worry of parts collapsing — to the larger ones — Promethean boards in every classroom with wireless cable and Internet access.
“We didn’t have anything like this (at Hunt Intermediate School),” Erica Harris said, touting the technology. Harris also teaches sixth-grade reading and language arts.
“There’s no comparison,” Brooks added.
Hunt was built in 1953 as the all-black high school. For the past several years, it housed grades five and six, until this school year, when fifth grade moved into the district’s five elementary schools. Sixth grade remained at Hunt, waiting for completion of Columbus Middle
Walking into the cafeteria, Angela Reed’s jaw dropped.
“Wow,” she beamed.
Suspended ceiling elements hanging at different heights are cut into the shape of clouds. Restaurant-style gold booths line the wall, and round tables are peppered throughout. Awnings drop over food pick-up windows, called “Presto Pizza,” “Sub Station,” “Down Home” and a busing station called “Dish It.”
“It’s going to be so exciting for the students and the teachers and everybody,” Reed said.
Reed teaches eighth-grade reading comprehension at Lee Middle School. Lee also was built in 1953, as the all-white high school. It now houses grades seven and eight, at least until Friday, when students get out for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. Hunt and Lee students will report to the new middle school on Jan. 19, when they return from the extended weekend.
“I made it look nice,” Reed said of her classroom at Lee. “But this is so much nicer than I ever imagined.”
“It’s amazing,” football and baseball coach Lee Davis said, running through a list of technology and energy elements of the school.
Secure access cards will allow teachers to enter and exit the school through the door closest to their classroom. The entire building is “wireless,” with wireless Internet access throughout, sensor-controlled lighting and sprinkler systems and motion-detecting surveillance cameras.
“With all this technology, there’s limitless possibilities,” Reed added.
“This place rivals a college campus — the chemistry labs, everything,” Davis said.
In his domain, Davis shows off a checkerboard-floored weight room with 150 combination lockers, a laundry room and a door opening right into the practice field.
At Lee, Davis had to take uniforms to the laundry room at the maintenance shop. And with only 80 lockers, there weren’t enough for 75 seventh-grade and 65 eighth-grade athletes to lock up their gear and personal items.
Davis also is excited to display the eighth-graders’ recently won Golden Triangle Regional Championship trophy.
“I’ve been shining it up each day until it finds its new home,” he said.
“I feel like I’m in a dream right now,” Lacey Lochala said, walking into the gym, snapping pictures, as were most of her colleagues. ‘This is amazing.”
Lochala teaches seventh-grade English.
“The library’s awesome,” she added, citing it as her favorite part of the school. “I want to live there.”
Unofficially dubbed “Books-A-Middle,” the library features suspended lights in geometric shapes. Purple lamps also accent the decor.
“It’s just beautiful. The whole school is just (beautiful),” librarian Jamie Davidson said.
A cozy nook featuring a coffee table and cushioned furniture defies the standard school library look, as does the walkway to a counter reminiscent of a book store or large community library.
“It’s really the hub of the school,” Davidson said of the library. “I think we’ll have to be saying, ‘Scoot, scoot; go back to class.'”
Lochala and fellow teachers believe the school will invoke a strong sense of pride in its student body.
“We just hope that it gives the kids a new outlook,” Brooks said. “If you invest this much in them, maybe they’ll invest that in themselves.”
“When they see how much people have invested in what they come to school in every day, they’re going to strive to do their best,” Reed said.
If eighth-graders Shan’qula Fulton and Jeralyn Hayes reflect the ideas of their peers, the teachers’ sentiments already hold true.
“I think the school is awesome,” Shan’qula said.
“I love it. It makes me want to come to school,” Jeralyn added. “Words can’t express. It’s a huge upgrade, from Lee to this.”
Shan’qula is the daughter of Laura Ledbetter. Jeralyn is the daughter of James and Shaundolyn Hayes.
“I’m just so overwhelmed. I’m so proud for our students, our faculty and the entire district, to have a facility of this magnitude,” said Lee Principal Cindy Wamble, who’ll head the new school along with assistant principals on each wing.
Wamble, Phillips and other district faculty visited schools in Georgia, Alabama and other areas to get ideas for Columbus Middle School.
‘What we saw were bits and pieces of this … but nothing as nice as this and nothing that brought all those elements together,” she said.
“One key concept that separates our middle school from other middle schools we visited as a team are the integrated ‘magnet’ spaces such as the dance studio, drama studio, advanced science labs, and the level of technology in each classroom,” Phillips said. “We knew how important it was for our district’s vision to become a reality to include those spaces into the new middle school, so our vision of a K-12 magnet environment would come to fruition.”
Each of the district’s elementary schools features a magnet theme — wellness and medical sciences, communication and technology, international studies, fine arts and aerospace and science.
Those themes will continue at the middle school and, eventually, at the high school level.
In addition to a design with technology and function in mind — separate wings stem from a central area to easily monitor halls — the school’s location offers the beauty of nature as a backdrop, Wamble said.
“The setting itself is so beautiful, you can’t help but want to be here and be a part of it.”
For those who question spending $22 million on the building and land on which it’s housed, the investment has a priceless byproduct.
“There is a large body of research linking good school facility condition and design to improved student performance,” said Ian T. Hadden, energy/sustainability services manager for Fanney Howey, a community and school architecture planning and engineering firm based in Little Rock.
And it’s better to spend enough money on the front end, so the building can stay functional for decades to come, Howey said.
“I don’t recall the original source, but (I) once heard a wise statement, ‘schools are too poor to build cheap,'” Hadden noted. “The speaker meant that operating dollars are very hard to find in a school district, and, therefore, a heavy focus should be placed on constructing buildings that a
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